svA,r^,J 

1^ 

.... 

..,a,;\YS  ON  T^-^^'  POETRY  OF 
THE  FRE?fCHM.;  ,:,■■■;■"' -C^ 


'^'■'^^.i'^^'i 


H.   BEL LOG 


j    LIBRARY 

!      UNIVCtSITY  Of 
VcALirOtNIA/ 

UNDER6RAD. 
LIBRARY 


V- 


V 


s 


AVRIL. 


AVRIL 

BEING 

ESSAYS  ON  THE  POETRY  OF  THE 

FRENCH  RENAISSANCE 

BY 

H.  BELLOC 


"...   Ceux  dont  la  Fantaisie 
Sera  religieuse  et  devote  envers  Dieu 
Tousjours  acheveront  quelque  grant  PoesiCy 
Et  desius  leur  renom  la  Parque  rfaura  lieu." 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  AND  CO. 

1904 


Part  of  this  book  originally  appeared 
in  "The  Pilot,"  and  is  here  reprinted 
by  kind  permission  of  the  Editor. 


?Q4iT 


UNDERQRAD. 
LIBRARY 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Charles  of  Orleans i 

Villon 37 

Marot    .• 75 

RONSARD 115 

Du  Bellay 149 

Malherbe 195 


DEDICATION 

TO 

F.  Y.  ECCLES 


DEDICATION 

My  dear  Eccles, 

You  will,  I  know,  permit  me  to  address  you  these  essays 
which  are  more  the  produft  of  your  erudition  than  of  my  enthusiasm. 

With  the  motives  of  their  appearance  you  are  familiar. 

We  have  wondered  together  that  a  society  so  avid  of  experience 
and  enlargement  as  is  ours,  should  ignore  the  chief  expression  of  its 
closest  neighbour,  its  highest  rival  and  its  coheir  in  Europe:  should 
ignore,  I  mean,  the  literature  of  the  French. 

We  have  laughed  together,  not  without  despair,  to  see  the  mind 
of  England,  for  all  its  majesty  and  breadth,  informed  at  the  most 
critical  moments  in  the  policy  of  France  by  such  residents  of  Paris  as 
were  at  the  best  fanatical,  at  the  worst  (and  most  ordinary)  corrupt. 

Seeing  around  us  here  a  philosophy  and  method  drawn  from  north- 
ern Germany,  a  true  and  subtle  sympathy  with  the  Italians,  and  a 
perpetual,  just  and  accurate  comment  upon  the  minor  nationalities 
of  Europe,  a  mass  of  recorded  travel  superior  by  far  to  that  of  other 
countries,  we  marvelled  that  France  in  particular  should  have  re- 
mained unknown. 

We  were  willing,  in  an  earlier  youth,  to  read  this  riddle  in  some- 
what crude  solutions.  I  think  we  have  each  of  us  arrived,  and  in  a 
final  manner,  at  the  sounder  conclusion  that  historical  accident  is 
principally  to  blame.  The  chance  concurrence  of  this  defeat  with 
that  dynastic  influence,  the  slip  by  which  the  common  sense  of 
political  simplicity  missed  footing  in  England  and  fell  a  generation 
behind,  the  marvellous  industrial  activities  of  this  country,  protected 
by  a  tradition  of  political  discipline  which  will  remain  unique  in 


DEDICATION 

History;  the  contemporaneous  settling  down  of  France  into  the 
equih'brium  of  power — an  equilibrium  not  established  without  five 
hearty  civil  wars  and  perhaps  a  hundred  campaigns — all  these  so 
separated  the  two  worlds  of  thought  as  to  leave  France  excusable 
for  her  blindness  towards  the  destinies  and  nature  of  England,  and 
England  excusable  for  her  continued  emptiness  of  knowledge  upon 
the  energy  and  genius  of  France:  though  these  were  increasing 
daily,  immensely,  at  our  very  side. 

We  have  assisted  at  some  straining  of  such  barriers.  A  long  peace, 
the  sterility  of  Germany,  the  interesting  a6livities  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  have  perhaps  not  yet  changed,  but  have  at  least  disturbed 
the  mind  of  the  north,  and  ours,  a  northern  people's,  with  it.  The 
unity,  the  passionate  patriotism,  the  close  oligarchic  polity,  the  very 
silence  of  the  English  has  arrested  the  eyes  of  France.  By  a  law 
which  is  universal  where  bodies  are  bouJid  in  one  system,  an  extreme 
of  separation  has  wrought  its  own  remedy  and  the  return  towards 
a  closer  union  is  begun.  I  do  not  refer  to  such  ephemeral  and  arti- 
ficial manifestations  as  a  special  and  somewhat  humiliating  need 
may  demand;  I  consider  rather  that  large  sweep  of  tendency  which 
was  already  apparent  fifteen  years  after  the  Franco-Prussian  War. 
An  approach  in  taste,  manners  and  expression  well  defined  during 
our  undergraduate  years,  has  now  introduced  much  of  our  inmost 
life  to  the  French,  to  us  already  a  hint  of  their  philosophy. 

I  think  you  believe,  as  I  do,  that  the  return  has  begun. 

We  shall  not  live  to  see  that  fine  unity  of  the  west  which  lent 
the  latter  seventeeeth  and  eighteenth  centuries  their  classical  repose. 
No  common  rule  of  verse  or  prose  will  satisfy  men's  permanent 
desire  for  harmony:  no  common  rule  of  manners,  of  honour,  of  in- 
ternational ethics,  of  war.  We  shall  not  live  to  see,  though  we  are 
young  now,  a  Paris  reading  some  new  Locke  or  Hume,  a  London 
moved  to  attentive  delight  in  some  latter  trinity  of  Dramatists,  some 
future  Voltaire.  .  .  .  The  high,  prote6ted  class,  which  moved  at 
case  between  the  Capitals  of  the  World,  has  disappeared ;  that  which 


DEDICATION 

should  take  its  place  is  not  yet  formed.  We  are  both  of  that  one 
Faith  which  can  but  regard  our  Christendom  as  the  front  of  man- 
kind and  which,  therefore,  looks  forward,  as  to  a  necessary  goal,  to 
the  re-establishment  of  its  common  comprehension.  But  the  rever- 
sion to  such  stability  is  slow.    We  shall  not  live  to  see  it. 

It  is  none  the  less  our  duty  (if  I  may  use  a  word  of  so  unsavoury 
a  connotation)  to  advance  the  accomplishment  of  this  good  fatality. 

Not  indeed  that  a  vulgar  cosmopolitan  beatitude  can  inspire  an 
honest  man.  To  abandon  one's  patriotism,  and  to  despise  a  frontier 
or  a  flag,  is,  we  are  agreed,  the  negation  of  Europe.  There  are 
Frenchmen  who  forget  their  battles,  and  Englishmen  to  whom  a 
gold  mine,  a  chance  federal  theory,  a  colonial  accent,  or  a  map,  is 
more  of  an  inheritance  than  the  delicate  feminine  profile  of  Nelson 
or  the  hitherto  unbroken  traditions  of  our  political  scheme.  To 
such  men  arms  are  either  abhorrent,  or,  what  is  worse,  a  very 
cowardly  (and  thank  God!  unsuccessful)  method  of  acquiring  or 
defending  their  very  base  enjoyments.  Let  us  forget  them.  It  is 
only  as  nationalists,  and  only  in  an  intense  sympathy  with  the  highly 
individual  national  unities  of  Europe  that  we  may  approach  the 
endeavour  of  which  I  have  spoken. 

With  us,  I  fear,  that  endeavour  must  take  a  literary  form,  but 
such  a  channel  is  far  from  ignoble  or  valueless.  He  that  knows 
some  part  of  the  letters  of  a  foreign  nation,  be  it  but  the  graces  or 
even  the  vagaries  of  such  letters,  knows  something  of  that  nation's 
mind.  To  portray  for  the  populace  one  religion  welding  the  west 
together,  to  spread  a  common  philosophy,  or  to  interpret  and  arrange 
political  terms,  would  certainly  prove  a  more  lasting  labour:  but 
you  will  agree  with  me  that  mere  sympathy  in  letters  is  not  to  be 
despised. 

We  have  observed  together  that  the  balance  in  this  matter  is 
heavily  against  the  English.  M.  Jusserand  is  easily  the  first  authority 
upon  popular  life  in  England  at  the  close  of  the  middle  ages. 
M.  Boutmy  has  produced  an  analysis  of  our  political  development 


DEDICATION 

which  our  Universities  have  justly  recognized.  Our  friend  M.  An- 
gellier  of  the  Ecole  Normale  has  written  what  is  acknowledged  by 
the  more  learned  Scotch  to  be  the  principal  existing  monograph 
upon  Robert  Burns;  Mr.  Kipling  himself  has  snatched  the  atten- 
tion of  M.  Chevrillon.  You  know  how  many  names  might  be  added 
to  this  list  to  prove  the  close,  applied  and  penetrating  manner  in 
which  French  scholars  have  latterly  presented  our  English  writers 
to  their  fellow-citizens. 

We  have  both  believed  that  something  of  the  sort  might  be 
attempted  in  the  converse;  that  a  view  could  be  given — a  glimpse 
at  least — of  that  vast  organism  whose  foundations  are  in  Rome,  co- 
eval with  the  spring  of  Christianity,  and  whose  last  growth  seems 
as  vigorous  and  as  fecund  as  though  it  were  exempt  from  any 
laws  of  age. 

But,  I  say,  we  know  how  heavy  is  the  balance  against  us. 

The  Gallic  ritual  is  unrecognized,  even  by  our  over-numerous 
class  of  clerical  antiquarians.  The  Carolingian  cycle  is  neglected, 
save  perhaps  for  a  dozen  men  who  have  seen  the  Song  of  Roland. 
The  Complaints  of  Rusteboeuf,  the  Fabliaux,  all  the  local  legendary 
poetry,  all  the  chroniclers  (save  Froissart — for  he  wrote  of  us),  the 
tender  simplicity  of  Joinville,  the  hard  steel  of  Villehardouin,  no 
one  has  handled. 

The  fifteenth  century,  the  storm  of  the  Renaissance,  are  not 
taught.  Why,  Rabelais  himself  might  be  but  an  unfamiliar  name 
had  not  a  northern  squire  of  genius  rendered  to  the  life  three 
quarters  of  his  work. 

The  list  is  interminable.  Even  the  great  Drama  of  the  great 
century  is  but  a  text  for  our  schools  leaving  no  sort  of  trace  upon 
the  mind:  and  as  for  the  French  moderns  (I  have  heard  it  from 
men  of  liberal  education)  they  are  denied  to  have  written  any  poetry 
at  all:  so  exadt,  so  subtle,  so  readily  to  be  missed,  are  the  propor- 
tions of  their  speech. 

*  *  ^  'if  ¥^  * 


DEDICATION 

If  you  ask  me  why  I  should  myself  approach  the  matter,  I  can 
plead  some  inheritance  of  French  blood,  comparable,  I  believe,  to 
your  own;  and  though  I  have  no  sort  of  claim  to  that  unique  and 
accomplished  scholarship  which  gives  you  a  mastery  of  the  French 
tongue  unmatched  in  England,  and  a  complete  familiarity  with  its 
history,  application  and  genius,  yet  I  can  put  to  my  credit  a  year 
of  aftive,  if  eccentric,  experience  in  a  French  barrack  room,  and  a 
complete  segregation  during  those  twelve  memorable  months 
wherein  I  could  study  the  very  soul  of  this  sincere,  creative,  and 
tenacious  people. 

Your  learning,  my  singular  adventure,  have  increased  in  us,  it 
must  be  confessed,  a  permanent  and  reasoned  admiration  for  this 
people's  qualities.  Such  an  attitude  of  mind  is  rare  enough  and 
often  dangerous:  it  is  but  a  qualification  the  more  for  beginning 
the  work.  It  permits  us  to  follow  the  main  line  of  the  past  of  the 
French,  to  comprehend  and  not  to  be  troubled  by  the  energy  of 
their  present,  to  catch  the  advancing  omens  of  their  future. 

Indeed,  if  anything  of  France  is  to  be  explained  in  English  and 
to  people  reading  English,  I  could  not  desire  a  better  alliance  than 
yours  and  mine. 

But  if  you  ask  me  why  the  Renaissance  especially — or  why  in  the 
Renaissance  these  six  poets  alone — should  have  formed  the  subject 
of  my  first  endeavour,  I  can  only  tell  you  that  in  so  vast  a  province, 
whereof  the  most  ample  leisure  could  not  in  a  lifetime  exhaust  a 
tithe.  Chance,  that  happy  Goddess,  led  me  at  random  to  their 
groves. 

Whether  it  will  be  possible  to  continue  such  interpretation  I  do 
not  know,  but  if  it  be  so  possible,  I  know  still  less  what  next  may 
be  put  into  my  hands :  Racine,  perhaps,  may  call  me,  or  those  for- 
gotten men  who  urged  the  Revolution  with  phrases  of  fire. 

H.  BELLOC. 

CuEhSBA,  JanuoT)',  1904.. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

I  PUT  down  Charles  of  Orleans  here  as  the  first  represent- 
ative of  that  long  glory  which  it  is  the  business  of  this 
little  book  to  recall :  but  to  give  him  such  a  place  at  the 
threshold  requires  some  apology. 

The  origins  of  a  literary  epoch  differ  according  as  that 
epoch  is  primal  or  derivative.  There  are  those  edifices  of 
letters  which  start  up,  not  indeed  out  of  nothing,  but  out 
of  things  wholly  different.  Produced  by  a  shock  or  a 
revelation,  as  two  gases  lit  will,  in  a  sharp  explosion,  unite 
to  form  a  liquid  wholly  unlike  either,  so  after  a  great  con- 
quest, a  battle,  the  sudden  preaching  of  a  creed,  these 
primal  literatures  appear  in  an  epic  or  a  dithyrambic  code 
of  awful  law.  Their  first  effort  is  their  mightiest.  They 
come  mature.  They  are  allied  to  that  element  of  the 
catastrophic  which  the  modern  world  (taking  its  general 
philosophy  from  its  social  condition)  denies,  but  which  is 
yet  at  the  limits  of  all  things  separate  and  themselves; 
accompanies  every  birth,  and  strikes  agony  into  every 
transition  of  death. 

Those  other  much  commoner  epochs  in  the  history  of 
letters,  which  may  be  called  derivative,  have  this  current 
and  obvious  quality,  that  their  beginnings  merge  into 
the  soil  that  bred  them,  also  (very  often)  their  decay  will 

3 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

lapse  imperceptibly  into  newer  things.  They  are  quite 
definite,  but  also  definitely  parented.  We  know  their 
special  stuff  and  harmony,  but  we  can  point  out  clearly 
enough  the  elements  which  formed  that  stuff,  the  tones 
which  unite  in  that  harmony.  We  can  show  with  dates 
and  citations  the  parts  meeting  and  blending;  our  difficulty 
is  not  to  determine  the  influences  which  have  mixed  to 
make  the  general  school,  but  rather  to  fix  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  its  effedl  upon  men. 

In  the  first  of  these  the  leader,  sometimes  the  unique 
example  of  the  school,  stands  out  great,  but  particular 
and  clear,  on  a  background  vague  or  dark.  He  is  as 
stupendous,  yet  as  sharp  and  certain,  as  a  mountain  facing 
the  morning,  with  only  sky  behind.  In  the  second  the 
originator,  if  there  be  one,  is  vague,  tentative,  perhaps  un- 
known. More  often  many  minor  men  together  introduce 
a  slow  and  general  transition. 

Now  the  French  Renaissance  has  this  peculiar  mark, 
that  it  holds  quite  plainly  by  one  side  of  it  to  the  first  by 
the  other  to  the  second  of  these  spirits. 

It  was  primal  and  catastrophic  in  that  it  made  something 
completely  new.  A  new  architedture,  new  cities,  a  new 
poetry,  almost  a  new  language,  a  new  kind  of  government 
— ultimately  the  modern  world. 

It  was  derivative  in  that  the  shock,  the  revelation,  which 
produced  it,  was  the  return  of  something  allied  to  the 
French  blood,  something  rooted  in  the  French  memory. 
Rome  surviving  or  risen  had  made  that  Italy,  which  was 

4 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

now  beginning  to  trouble  the  Alps,  and  would  surely  creep  in 
by  every  channel  of  influence,  and  at  last  pervade  all  Europe. 
Rome,  also,  in  her  full  vigour,  had  once  framed  and  ordered 
Gaul.  The  French  of  the  Renaissance  were  woken  suddenly, 
but  as  they  started  they  recognized  the  face  and  the  hand 
of  the  awakener. 

On  this  account  you  will  find  one  mind  indeed  at  the 
very  beginning  of  the  change  in  letters,  but  not  a  domin- 
ating mind.  There  is  but  one  man  who  is  certainly  an  origin, 
but  he  is  not  a  master.  You  see  an  unique  and  single  per- 
sonality, distindl  but  without  force,  founding  no  school — 
the  grave,  abiding,  kind  but  covert  face  of  Charles  of 
Orleans.  He,  linked  to  the  French  Renaissance,  is  like  the 
figure  of  a  gentle  friend  playing  in  some  garden  with  a 
child  whose  manners  are  new  and  pleasing  to  him,  but  of 
whose  great  destiny  he  makes  no  guess.  That  child  was  to 
be  Du  Bellay,  Brantome,  Montaigne  a  hundred-sided,  huge 
Rabelais,  Ronsard.  Or  perhaps  this  metaphor  will  put  it 
better.  To  say  that  Charles  of  Orleans's  equal  and  persist- 
ent music  was  like  a  string  harped  on  distinctly  in  a  chorus 
of  flutes  and  hautboys,  till  one  by  one  harps  from  here  and 
there  caught  up  the  similar  tang  of  chords  and  at  last  the 
whole  body  of  sound  was  harping  only. 

His  life  was  suited  to  such  difference  and  such  origina- 
tion. Italy,  still  living,  filled  him.  An  Italian  secretary 
wrote  from  his  mouth  the  most  sumptuous  of  his  manu- 
scripts. He  banded  on  Italy  as  a  goal  and  his  Italian  land 
as  a  legacy  to  the  French  crown — to  his  own  son;  till  (years 

5 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

after  his  death)  the  soldiers  roared  through  Brian^on  and 
broke  the  crusted  snow  of  Mont  Genevre.  An  Italian 
mother,  the  most  beautiful  of  the  Viscontis,  come  out  of 
Italy,  rich  in  her  land  of  Asti  and  her  half  million  of  pure 
gold,  had  borne  him  in  her  youth  to  the  King  of  France's 
brother :  a  man  luxurious,  over  fine,  exafl  in  taste,  a  lover 
of  magnificence  in  stories  and  words,  decadent  in  a  dying 
time,  very  brave.  Through  that  father  the  Valois  blood, 
unjustly  hated  or  still  more  unjustly  despised  according  to 
the  varied  ignorance  of  modern  times,  ran  in  him  nobly. 

Take  the  Valois  strain  entire  and  you  will  find  the  pomp 
or  rather  the  fantasy  of  their  great  palace  of  St.  Paul; 
turrets  and  steep  blue  roofs  of  slate,  carved  woodwork, 
heavy  curtains,  and  incense  and  shining  bronze.  The 
Valois  were,  indeed,  the  end  of  the  middle  ages.  Some 
cruelty,  a  fury  in  battle,  intelligence  and  madness  alternately, 
and  always  a  sort  of  keenness  which  becomes  now  revenge, 
now  foresight,  now  intrigue,  now  str\6t  and  terrible  govern- 
ment: atlastawildadventureout  beyond  the  hills:  Fornovo, 
Pa  via. 

Their  story  is  like  the  manuscripts,  which  beyond  all  other 
things  they  loved  and  collected,  and  which  they  were  the 
last  to  possess  or  to  have  made;  for  while  it  contains  in 
vivid  pi6lures  the  noblest  and  the  basest  subjeds:  (Joan  of 
Arc  and  also  her  betrayal,  their  country  dominant  and  almost 
engulfed,  Marigano,  and  then  again  Pavia)  it  always  glitters 
with  hard  enamelled  colours  against  skies  of  gold,  and  is 
drawn  and  sharp  and  clean  as  a  thing  can  be. 

6 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

Such  is  the  whole  line,  but  look  at  this  one  Valois  and 
you  see  all  the  qualities  of  his  race  toned  by  a  permanent 
sadness  down  to  a  good  and  even  temper,  not  hopeful  but 
still  delighting  in  beauty  and  possessed  as  no  other  Valois 
had  been  of  charity.  Less  passionate  and  therefore  much 
less  eager  and  useful  than  most  of  his  race,  yet  the  taint  of 
madness  never  showed  in  him,  nor  the  corresponding  evil 
of  cruelty,  nor  the  uncreative  luxury  of  his  immediate 
ancestry.  All  the  Valois  were  poets  in  their  kind;  his  life 
by  its  every  accident  caused  him  to  write.  At  fifteen  they 
wedded  him  to  that  lovely  child  whom  Richard  II  had 
lifted  in  his  arms  at  Windsor  as  he  rode  out  in  fatal  pomp 
for  Ireland.  Three  years  later,  when  their  marriage  was  real, 
she  died  in  childbirth,  and  it  is  to  her  I  think  that  he  wrote 
in  his  prison  the  ballad  which  ends: 

Dieu  sur  tout  souverain  seigneur 
Ordonnez  par  grace  et  douceur 
De  I'ame  d'elle  tellement 
Ou'elle  ne  soit  pas  longuement 
En  peine  souci  et  douleur. 

Already,  in  the  quarrel  that  so  nearly  wrecked  the  crown, 
the  anti-national  fadions  had  killed  his  father.  He  was  plan- 
ning vengeance,  engraving  little  mottoes  of  hate  upon  his 
silver,  when  the  wars  came  on  them  all.  A  boy  of  twenty- 
four,  well-horsed,  much  more  of  a  soldier  than  he  later 
seemed,  he  charged,  leading  the  centre  of  the  three  tall 
troops  at  Agincourt.  In  the  evening  of  that  disaster  they 
pulled  him  out  from  under  a  great  heap  of  the  ten  thousand 

7 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

dead  and  brought  him  prisoner  into  England,  to  Windsor 
then  to  Pomfret  Castle.  Chatterton,  Cobworth,  at  last  John 
Cornwall,  of  Fanhope,  were  his  guardians.  To  some  one 
of  these — probably  the  last — he  wrote  the  farewell: 

Mon  tres  bon  hote  et  ma  tres  douce  h6tesse. 

For  his  life  as  a  prisoner,  though  melancholy,  was  not 
undignified;  he  paid  no  allegiance,  he  met  the  men  of  his 
own  rank,  nor  was  he  of  a  kind  to  whom  poverty,  the  chief 
thorn  of  his  misfortune,  brought  dishonour. 

Henry  V  had  left  it  stridly  in  his  will  that  Orleans  the 
general  and  the  head  of  the  French  nationals  should  not 
return.  For  twenty-five  years,  therefore — all  his  manhood 
— he  lived  under  this  sky,  rhyming  and  rhyming:  in  English 
a  little,  in  French  continually, and  during  that  isolation  there 
swept  past  him  far  off  in  his  own  land  the  defence,  the 
renewal,  the  triumph  of  his  own  blood :  his  town  relieved, 
his  cousin  crowned  at  Rheims.  His  river  of  Loire,  and  then 
the  Eure,  and  then  the  Seine,  and  even  the  field  where  he 
had  fallen  were  reconquered.  Willoughby  had  lost  Paris  to 
Richemont  four  years  before  Charles  of  Orleans  was  freed 
on  a  ransom  of  half  his  mother's  fortune.  It  was  not  until 
the  November  of  1440  that  he  saw  his  country-side  again. 
The  verse  formed  in  that  long  endurance  (a  style  which 
he  preserved  to  the  end  in  the  many  poems  after  his  release) 
may  seem  at  a  first  reading  merely  mediaeval.  There  is 
wholly  lacking  in  it  the  riot  of  creation,  nor  can  one  see 
at  first  the  Renaissance  coming  in  with  Charles  of  Orleans. 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

Indeed,  it  was  laid  aside  as  mediaeval,  and  was  wholly 
forgotten  for  three  hundred  years.  No  one  had  even  heard 
of  him  for  all  those  centuries  till  Sallier,  that  learned  priest, 
pacing,  full  of  his  Hebrew  and  Syriac,  the  rooms  of  the 
royal  library  which  Louis  XV  had  but  lately  given  him  to 
govern,  found  the  manuscript  of  the  poems  and  wrote  an 
essay  on  them  for  the  Academy. 

The  verse  is  full  of  allegory;  it  is  repetitive;  it  might 
weary  one  with  the  savour  of  that  unhappy  fifteenth  century 
when  the  human  mind  lay  under  oppression,  and  only  the 
rich  could  speak  their  insignificant  words ;  a  foreigner 
especially  might  find  it  all  dry  bones,  but  his  judgement 
would  be  wrong.  Charles  of  Orleans  has  a  note  quite  new 
and  one  that  after  him  never  failed,  but  grew  in  volume 
and  in  majesty  until  it  filled  the  great  chorus  of  the  Pleiade — 
the  Lyrical  note  of  direft  personal  expression.  Perhaps  the 
wars  produced  it  in  him;  the  lilt  of  the  marching  songs 
was  still  spontaneous : 

Gentil  Due  de  Lorraine,  vous  avez  grand  renom, 
Et  votre  renommee  passe  au  dela  des  monts 
Et  vous  et  vos  gens  d'arme,  et  tous  vos  compagnons 
Au  premier  coup  qu'ils  frappent,  abattent  les  Donjons. 
Tirez,  tirez  bombardes,  serpentines,  Canons ! 

Whatever  the  cause,  this  spontaneity  and  freshness  run 
through  all  the  mass  of  short  and  similar  work  which  he 
wrote  down. 

The  spring  and  sureness,  the  poise  of  these  light  nothings 
make  them  a  flight  of  birds. 

9 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 
See  how  dire<5t  is  this: 

Dieu !   qu'il  la  fait  bon  regarder! 
La  gracieuse,  bonne  et  belle. 

or  this : 

Le  lendemain  du  premier  jour  de  Mai 
Dedans  men  lit  ainsi  que  je  dormoye 
Au  point  du  jour  advint  que  je  sonjeay. 

Everywhere  his  words  make  tunes  for  themselves  and 
everywhere  he  himself  appears  in  his  own  verses,  simple, 
charming,  slight,  but  with  memories  of  government  and  of 
arms. 

This  style  well  formed,  half  his  verse  written,  he  returned 
to  his  own  place.  He  was  in  middle  age — a  man  of  fifty. 
He  married  soberly  enough  Mary  of  Cleves,  ugly  and 
young:  he  married  her  in  order  to  cement  the  understand- 
ing with  Burgundy.  She  did  not  love  him  with  his  shy 
florid  face,  long  neck  and  features  and  mild  eyes.  His  age 
for  twenty-five  years  passed  easily,  he  had  reached  his 
**  castle  of  No  Care."  As  late  as  1462  his  son  (Louis  XII) 
was  born;  his  two  daughters  at  long  intervals  before.  His 
famous  library  moved  with  him  as  he  went  from  town  to 
town,  and  perpetually  from  himself  and  round  him  from 
his  retinue  ran  the  continual  stream  of  verse  which  only 
ended  with  his  death.  His  very  dodior  he  compelled  to 
rhyme. 

All  the  singers  of  the  time  visited  or  remained  with 
him — wild  Villon  for  a  moment,  and  after  Villon  a  crowd 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS. 

of  minor  men.  It  was  in  such  a  company  that  he  recited 
the  last  ironical  but  tender  song  wherein  he  talks  of  his 
lost  youth  and  vigour  and  ends  by  bidding  all  present  a 
salute  in  the  name  of  his  old  age. 

So  he  sat,  half  regal,  holding  a  court  of  song  in  Blois 
and  Tours,  a  forerunner  in  verse  of  what  the  new  time  was 
to  build  in  stone  along  the  Loire.  And  it  was  at  Amboise 
that  he  died. 


II 


THE  COMPLAINT. 

{The  ^ith  Ballade  of  those  written  during  his  imprisonment^ 


THE  COMPLAINT. 

There  is  some  dispute  in  the  matter,  but  I  will  believe, 
as  I  have  said,  that  this  dead  Princess,  for  whose  soul  he 
prays,  was  certainly  the  wife  of  his  boyhood,  a  child  whom 
Richard  II  had  wed  just  before  that  Lancastrian  usurpa- 
tion which  is  the  irreparable  disaster  of  English  history. 
She  was,  I  say,  a  child — a  widow  in  name — when  Charles 
of  Orleans,  himself  in  that  small  royal  clique  which  was 
isolated  and  shrivelling,  married  her  as  a  mere  matter  of 
state.  It  is  probable  that  he  grew  to  love  her  passionately, 
and  perhaps  still  more  her  memory  when  she  had  died  in 
child-bed  during  those  first  years,  even  before  Agincourt, 
"  en  droidte  fleur  de  jeunesse," — for  even  here  he  is  able  to 
find  an  exadt  and  sufficient  line. 

There  is  surely  to  be  noted  in  this  delicate  ballad,  some- 
thing more  native  and  truthful  in  its  pathos  than  in  the 
very  many  complaints  he  left  by  way  partly  of  reminiscence, 
partly  of  poetic  exercise.  For,  though  he  is  restrained,  as 
was  the  manner  of  his  rank  when  they  attempted  letters, 
yet  you  will  not  read  it  often  without  getting  in  you  a  share 
of  its  melancholy. 

15 


THE  COMPLAINT. 


That  melancholy  you  can  soon  discover  to  be  as  per- 
manent a  quality  in  the  verse  as  it  was  in  the  mind  of 
the  man  who  wrote  it. 


i6 


THE  COMPLAINT. 

Las!   Mart  qui  t'' a  fait  si  bardie^ 
De  prendre  la  noble  Princesse 
^ui  estoit  mon  confort^  ma  vie^ 
Mon  bien^  mon  plaisir^  ma  richesse! 
Puis  que  tu  as  prins  ma  maistresse^ 
Prens  moy  aussi  son  serviteur, 
Car  J  ^ayme  mieulx  prouchainement 
Mourir  que  languir  en  tourment 
En  paine^  soussi  et  doleur. 

Las!  de  tous  biens  estoit  garnie 
Et  en  droite  Jleur  de  jeunesse! 
ye  pry  a  Dieu  quil  te  maudie^ 
Pauls e  Mort^  plaine  de  rudesse! 
Se  prise  Peusses  en  viei Hesse, 
Ce  ne  fust  pas  si  grant  rigueur; 
Mais  prise  I'as  hastivement 
Et  m  ^as  laissie  piteusement 
En  paine,  soussi  et  doleur. 

Las!  je  suis  seul  sans  compaignie! 
Adieu  ma  Dame^  ma  Hesse! 
Or  est  nostre  amour  departie^ 
Non  pour  tant,  je  vousfais  promesse 
^ue  de  prieres,  a  largess e, 
Morte  vous  serviray  de  cueur^ 
Sans  oublier  aucunement ; 
Et  vous  regretteray  souvent 
En  painey  soussi  et  doleur. 
17 


THE  COMPLAINT. 


ENVOI. 
DieUy  sur  tout  souverain  SeigneuTy 
Ordonnez^  par  grace  et  doulceur^ 
De  Vame  d^elle^  tellement 
^u  ''elle  ne  so'it  pas  longuement 
En  paine,  soussi  et  doleur. 


i8 


THE  TWO  ROUNDELS  OF  SPRING. 

{The  \\st  and  43  rd'  of  the  '■'•Rondeaux") 


THE  TWO  ROUNDELS  OF  SPRING. 

These  two  Rondeaux,  of  which  we  may  also  presume, 
though  very  vaguely,  that  they  were  written  in  England 
(for  they  are  in  the  manner  of  his  earlier  work),  are  by  far 
the  most  famous  of  the  many  things  he  wrote;  and  justly, 
for  they  have  all  these  qualities. 

Firsts  they  are  exadt  specimens  of  their  style.  The 
Roundel  should  interweave,  repeat  itself,  and  then  recover 
its  original  strain,  and  these  two  exadtly  give  such  unified 
diversity. 

Secondly:  they  were  evidently  written  in  a  moment  of 
that  unknown  power  when  words  suggest  something  fuller 
than  their  own  meaning,  and  in  which  simplicity  itself 
broadens  the  mind  of  the  reader.  So  that  it  is  impossible 
to  put  one's  finger  upon  this  or  that  and  say  this  adjective, 
that  order  of  the  words  has  given  the  touch  of  vividness. 

Thirdly  :  they  have  in  them  still  a  living  spirit  of  reality ; 
read  them  to-day  in  Winter,  and  you  feel  the  Spring.  It  is 
this  quality  perhaps  which  most  men  have  seized  in  them, 
and  which  have  deservedly  made  them  immortal. 

A  further  character  which  has  added  to  their  fame,  is 
that,  being  perfedl  lyrics,  they  are  also  specimens  of  an 
old-fashioned  manner  and  metre  peculiar  to  the  time.  They 
are  the  resurredlion  not  only  of  the  Spring,  but  of  a  Spring 

21 


THE  TWO  ROUNDELS  OF  SPRING. 

of  the  fifteenth  century.  Nor  is  it  too  fantastic  to  say  that 
one  sees  in  them  the  last  miniatures  and  the  very  dress  of 
a  time  that  was  intensely  beautiful,  and  in  which  Charles 
of  Orleans  alone  did  not  feel  death  coming. 


THE  TWO  ROUNDELS  OF  SPRING. 

Les  fourriers  (T Este  sont  venus 
Pour  appareillier  son  iogis, 
Et  ont  fait  tendre  sestappisy 
Dejleurs  et  verdure  tissus. 

En  estandant  tappis  velus 
De  verte  herbe  par  le  pais^ 
Les  fourriers  d'  Este  sont  venus 
Pour  appareillier  son  logis. 

Cueurs  d'ennuy  pie^a  morfondus^ 
Dieu  merely  sont  sains  et  jolts; 
Ale%  vous  eny  prenez  pais, 
Tver  vous  ne  demourrez  plus; 
Les  fourriers  d'Este  sont  venus. 

Le  temps  a  laissie  son  manteau 
De  venty  de  froidure  et  de  pluyey 
Et  s^est  vestu  de  brouderiey 
De  soleil  luyanty  cler  et  beau. 

II  n^y  a  bestey  ne  oyseaUy 
^u'en  son  jargon  ne  chant  ou  crie; 
Le  temps  a  laissie  son  manteau 
De  vent  de  froidure  et  de  pluye. 

Rivierey  fontaine  et  ruisseau 
Portenty  en  livree  joliey 
Gouttes  d^argent  d^orfavreriey 
Chascun  s^abille  de  nouveau. 
Le  temp  a  laissie  son  manteau. 
23 


HIS  LOVE  AT  MORNING. 

{The  6th  of  the  ''Songs".) 


HIS  LOVE  AT  MORNING. 

In  this  delightful  little  song  the  spontaneity  and  freshness 
which  saved  his  work,  its  vigour  and  its  clarity  are  best 
preserved. 

It  does  indeed  defy  death  and  leaps  four  centuries:  it  is 
young  and  perpetual.  It  thrills  with  something  the  failing 
middle  ages  had  forgotten:  it  reaches  what  they  never 
reached,  a  climax,  for  one  cannot  put  too  vividly  the  flash 
of  the  penultimate  line,  "  I  am  granted  a  vision  when  I 
think  of  her." 

Yet  it  was  written  in  later  life,  and  who  she  was,  or 
whether  she  lived  at  all,  no  one  knows. 


27 


HIS  LOVE  AT  MORNING. 

Dieu  qu'il  la  fait  bon  regarder 
La  gracieuse  bonne  et  belle! 
Pour  les  grans  biens  qui  sont  en  elle^ 
Chascun  est  prest  de  la  louer 

^ui  se  pourroit  d  ^elle  lasser  ! 
Tousjours  sa  beaulte  renouvelle. 
Dieu^  qu'il  la  fait  bon  regarder y 
La  gracieuse^  bonne  et  belle! 

Par  de^a,  ne  dela  la  mer^ 
Ne  sfay  Dame  ne  Damoiselle 
^ui  soit  en  tous  biens  parfais  telle; 
C^est  un  songe  que  d''y  penser. 
Dieu,  qitil  la  fait  bon  regarder! 


29 


THE  FAREWELL. 

{The  310M  Roundel) 


THE  FAREWELL. 

Here  is  the  last  thing — we  may  presume — that  Charles  of 
Orleans  ever  wrote:  "Salute  me  all  the  company,  I  pray." 

In  that  "  company  "  not  only  the  Court  at  Amboise,  but 
the  men  of  the  early  wars,  his  companions,  were  round  him, 
and  the  dead  friends  of  his  gentle  memory. 

He  was  broken  with  age;  he  was  already  feeling  the 
weight  of  isolation  from  the  Royal  Family;  he  was  begin- 
ing  to  suffer  the  insults  of  the  king.  But,  beneath  all  this, 
his  gaiety  still  ran  like  a  river  under  ice,  and  in  the  ageing 
of  a  poet,  humour  and  physical  decline  combined  make  a 
good,  human  thing. 

There  is  an  excellent  irony  in  the  refrain:  "Salute  me, 
all  the  company,"  whose  double  interpretation  must  not 
be  missed,  though  it  may  seem  far-fetched. 

Till  the  last  line  it  means,  without  any  question,  "Salute 
the  company  in  my  name,"  but  I  think  there  runs  through 
it  also,  the  hint  of  "  Salute  me  for  my  years,  all  you  present 
who  are  young,"  and  that  this  certainly  is  the  note  in  the 
last  line  of  all.  It  must  be  remembered  of  the  French,  that 
they  never  expand  or  explain  their  ironical  things,  for  in 
art  it  is  their  nature  to  detest  excess. 

This  last  thing  of  his,  then,  I  say,  is  the  most  charader- 

33  D 


THE  FAREWELL. 


istic  of  him  and  of  his  Valois  blood,  and  of  the  national 
spirit  in  general  to  which  he  belonged:  for  he,  and  it, 
and  they,  loved  and  love  contrast,  and  the  extra-meaning 
of  words. 


34 


THE  FAREWELL. 

Saluez  moy  toute  la  compaignie 
Ou  a  present  estes  a  chiere  lie^ 
Et  leur  d't£ies  que  voulentiers  seroye 
Avecques  eulxy  mais  estre  rCy  porroye^ 
Pour  Vieillesse  qui  nCa  en  sa  baillie. 

Au  temps  passe y  "Jeunesse  si  jolie 
Me  gouvernoit ;  las  !  or  riy  suis  je  mye^ 
Et  pour  cela  pour  DieUy  que  excuse  soye; 
Saluez  moy  toute  la  compaignie 
Oil  a  present  estes  a  chiere  lie^ 
Et  leur  diSies  que  voulentiers  seroye. 

Amour eux  fuSy  or  ne  le  suis  je  mye, 
Et  en  Paris  menoye  bonne  vie; 
Adieu  Bon  temps  ravoir  ne  vous  saroye^ 
Bien  s angle  f us  d^une  estroite  courroye. 

^ue,  par  Aige^  convient  que  la  deslie. 
Saluez  moy  toute  la  compaignie. 


35 


VILLON. 


VILLON. 

I  HAVE  said  that  in  Charles  of  Orleans  the  middle  ages  are 
at  first  more  apparent  than  the  advent  of  the  Renaissance. 
His  forms  are  inherited  from  an  earlier  time,  his  termin- 
ology is  that  of  the  long  allegories  which  had  wearied  three 
generations,  his  themes  recall  whatever  was  theatrical 
in  the  empty  pageantry  of  the  great  war.  It  is  a  spirit 
deeper  and  more  fundamental  than  the  mere  framework  of 
his  writing  which  attaches  him  to  the  coming  time.  His 
clarity  is  new ;  it  proceeds  from  natural  things ;  it  marks 
that  return  to  reality  which  is  the  beginning  of  all  beneficent 
revolutions.  But  this  spirit  in  him  needs  examination  and 
discovery,  and  the  reader  is  confused  between  the  mediaeval 
phrases  and  the  something  new  and  troubling  in  the  voice 
that  utters  them. 

With  Villon,  the  next  in  order,  a  similar  confusion 
might  arise.  AH  about  him  as  he  wrote  were  the  middle 
ages:  their  grotesque,  their  contrast,  their  disorder.  His 
youth  and  his  aftivity  of  blood  forbad  him  any  contad:  with 
other  than  immediate  influences.  He  was  wholly  Northern ; 
he  had  not  so  much  as  guessed  at  what  Italy  might  be. 
The  decrepit  University  had  given  him,  as  best  she  could, 
the  dregs  of  her  palsied  philosophy  and  something  of  Latin. 
He  grew  learned  as  do  those  men  who  grasp  quickly  the 

39 


VILLON. 

major  lines  of  their  study,  but  who,  in  details,  will  only  be 
moved  by  curiosity  or  by  some  special  afFedlion.  There 
was  nothing  patient  in  him,  and  nothing  applied,  and  in  all 
this,  in  the  matter  of  his  scholarship  as  in  his  acquirement 
of  it,  he  is  of  the  dying  middle  ages  entirely. 

His  laughter  also  was  theirs:  the  kind  of  laughter  that 
saluted  the  first  Dance  of  Death  which  as  a  boy  he  had 
seen  in  new  frescoes  round  the  waste  graveyard  of  the  In- 
nocents. His  friends  and  enemies  and  heroes  and  buffoons 
were  the  youth  of  the  narrow  tortuous  streets,  his  visions 
of  height  were  the  turrets  of  the  palaces  and  the  precipitate 
roofs  of  the  town.  Distance  had  never  inspired  him,  for  in 
that  age  its  effeft  was  forgotten.  No  one  straight  street 
displayed  the  greatness  of  the  city,  no  wide  and  ordered 
spaces  enhanced  it.  He  crossed  his  native  river  upon 
bridges  all  shut  in  with  houses,  and  houses  hid  the  banks 
also.  The  sweep  of  the  Seine  no  longer  existed  for  his 
generation,  and  largeness  of  all  kinds  was  hidden  under  the 
dust  and  rubble  of  decay.  The  majestic,  which  in  sharp 
separate  lines  of  his  verse  he  certainly  possessed,  he  dis- 
covered within  his  own  mind,  for  no  great  arch  or  cornice, 
nor  no  colonnade  had  lifted  him  with  its  splendour. 

That  he  could  so  discover  it,  that  a  solemnity  and  order 
should  be  apparent  in  the  midst  of  his  raillery  whenever  he 
desires  to  produce  an  effed  of  the  grand,  leads  me  to  speak 
of  that  major  quality  of  his  by  which  he  stands  up  out  of 
his  own  time,  and  is  clearly  an  originator  of  the  great  re- 
newal.   I  mean  his  vigour. 

40 


VILLON. 

It  is  all  round  about  him,  and  through  him,  like  a  storm 
in  a  wood.  It  creates,  it  perceives.  It  possesses  the  man 
himself,  and  us  also  as  we  read  him.  By  it  he  launches  his 
influence  forward  and  outward  rather  than  receives  it  from 
the  past.  To  it  his  successors  turn,  as  to  an  ancestry,  when 
they  had  long  despised  and  thrown  aside  everything  else 
that  savoured  of  the  Gothic  dead.  By  it  he  increased  in 
reputation  and  meaning  from  his  boyhood  on  for  four 
hundred  years,  till  now  he  is  secure  among  the  first  lyric 
poets  of  Christendom.  It  led  to  no  excess  of  matter,  but 
to  an  exuberance  of  attitude  and  manner,  to  an  inexhaust- 
ibility of  special  words,  to  a  brilliancy  of  impression  unique 
even  among  his  own  people. 

He  was  poor;  he  was  amative;  he  was  unsatisfied.  This 
vigour,  therefore,  led  in  his  adlions  to  a  mere  wildness; 
clothed  in  this  wildness  the  rare  fragments  of  his  life  have 
descended  to  us.  He  professed  to  teach,  but  he  haunted 
taverns,  and  loved  the  roaring  of  songs.  He  lived  at  ran- 
dom from  his  twentieth  year  in  one  den  or  another  along 
the  waterside.  AfFedion  brought  him  now  to  his  mother, 
now  to  his  old  guardian  priest,  but  not  for  long;  he  returned 
to  adventure — such  as  it  was.  He  killed  a  man,  was  ar- 
rested, condemned,  pardoned,  exiled;  he  wandered  and 
again  found  Paris,  and  again — it  seems — stumbled  down 
his  old  lane  of  violence  and  dishonour. 

Associated  also  with  this  wildness  is  a  curious  imper- 
fection in  our  knowledge  of  him.  His  very  name  is  not 
his  own — or  any  other  man's.      His  father,  if  it  were  his 

41 


VILLON. 

father,  took  his  name  from  Mont-Corbier — half  noble. 
Villon  is  but  a  little  village  over  beyond  the  upper  Yonne, 
near  the  division,  within  a  day  of  the  water-parting  where 
the  land  falls  southward  to  Burgundy  and  the  sun  in  what 
they  call  *'  The  Slope  of  Gold."  From  this  village  a  priest, 
William,  had  come  to  Paris  in  1423.  They  gave  him  a 
canonry  in  that  little  church  called  "St.  Bennets  Askew," 
which  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  University,  near  Sorbonne, 
where  the  Rue  des  Ecoles  crosses  the  Rue  St.  Jacques 
to-day.  Hither,  to  his  house  in  the  cloister,  he  brought 
the  boy,  a  waif  whom  he  had  found  much  at  the  time 
when  Willoughby  capitulated  and  the  French  recaptured 
the  city.  He  had  him  taught,  he  designed  him  for  the 
University,  he  sheltered  him  in  his  vagaries,  he  gave  him 
asylum.  The  young  man  took  his  name  and  called  him 
"  more  than  father."  His  anxious  life  led  on  to  1468,  long 
after  the  poet  had  disappeared. 

For  it  is  in  146 1,  in  his  thirtieth  year,  that  Villon  last 
writes  down  a  verse.  It  is  in  1463  that  his  signature  is  last 
discovered.  Then  not  by  death  or,  if  by  death,  then  by 
some  death  unrecorded,  he  leaves  history  abruptly — a  most 
astonishing  exit!  .  .  .  You  may  pursue  fantastic  legends, 
you  will  not  find  the  man  himself  again.  Some  say  a  final 
quarrel  got  him  hanged  at  last — it  is  improbable :  no  record 
or  even  tradition  of  it  remains.  Rabelais  thought  him  a 
wanderer  in  England.  Poitou  preserves  a  story  of  his  later 
passage  through  her  fields,  of  how  still  he  drank  and  sang 
with  boon  companions,  and  of  how,  again,  he  killed  a 

42 


VILLON. 

man  .  .  .  Maybe,  he  only  ceased  to  write;  took  to  teach- 
ing soberly  in  the  University,  and  lived  in  a  decent  inherit- 
ance to  see  new  splendours  growing  upon  Europe.  It  may 
very  well  be,  for  it  is  in  such  characters  to  desire  in  early 
manhood  decency,  honour,  and  repose.  But  for  us  the  man 
ends  with  his  last  line.  His  body  that  was  so  very  real, 
his  personal  voice,  his  jargon — tangible  and  audible  things 
— spread  outward  suddenly  a  vast  shadow  upon  nothing- 
ness. It  was  the  end,  also,  of  a  world.  The  first  Presses 
were  creaking,  Constantinople  had  fallen,  Greek  was  in 
Italy,  Leonardo  lived,  the  stepping  stones  of  the  Azores 
were  held — in  that  new  light  he  disappears. 

^  Tv^  T^  TV-  Vi-  -Tr 

Of  his  greatness  nothing  can  be  said ;  it  is  like  the  great- 
ness of  all  the  chief  poets,  a  thing  too  individual  to  seize 
in  words.  It  is  superior  and  exterior  to  the  man.  Genius 
of  that  astounding  kind  has  all  the  qualities  of  an  ex- 
traneous thing.  A  man  is  not  answerable  for  it.  It  is 
nothing  to  his  salvation;  it  is  little  even  to  his  general 
charadter.  It  has  been  known  to  come  and  go,  to  be  put 
off  and  on  like  a  garment,  to  be  lent  by  Heaven  and  taken 
away,  a  capricious  gift. 

But  of  the  manner  of  that  genius  it  may  be  noted  that, 
as  his  vigour  prepared  the  flood  of  new  verse,  so  in  another 
matter  his  genius  made  him  an  origin.  Through  him  first, 
the  great  town — and  especially  Paris — appeared  and  became 
permanent  in  letters. 

Her  local  spirit  and  her  special  quality  had  shone  fitfully 

43 


VILLON. 

here  and  there  for  a  thousand  years — you  may  find  it  in 
Julian,  in  Abbo,  in  Joinville.  But  now,  in  the  fifteenth 
century,  it  had  been  not  only  a  town  but  a  great  town  for 
more  than  a  century — a  town,  that  is,  in  which  men  live 
entirely,  almost  ignorant  of  the  fields,  observing  only  other 
men,  and  forgetting  the  sky.  The  keen  edge  of  such  a  life, 
its  bitterness,  the  mockery  and  challenge  whereby  its  evils 
are  borne,  its  extended  knowledge,  the  intensity  of  its 
spirit — all  these  are  refledled  in  Villon,  and  first  refledled 
in  him.  Since  his  pen  first  wrote,  a  shining  acerbity  like 
the  glint  of  a  sword-edge  has  never  deserted  the  literature 
of  the  capital. 

It  was  not  only  the  metropolitan,  it  was  the  Parisian 
spirit  which  Villon  found  and  fixed.  That  spirit  which  is 
bright  over  the  whole  city,  but  which  is  not  known  in  the 
first  village  outside;  the  influence  that  makes  Paris  Athenian. 

The  ironical  Parisian  soul  has  depths  in  it.  It  is  so  lucid 
that  its  luminous  profundity  escapes  one — so  with  Villon. 
Rehgion  hangs  there.  Humility — fatally  divorced  from 
simplicity — pervades  it.  It  laughs  at  itself  There  are 
ardent  passions  of  sincerity,  repressed  and  reading  upon 
themselves.  The  virtues,  little  pradised,  are  commonly 
comprehended,  always  appreciated,  for  the  Faith  is  there 
permanent.  All  this  you  will  find  in  Villon,  but  it  is  too 
great  a  matter  for  so  short  an  essay  as  this. 


44 


THE  DEAD  LADIES. 


THE  DEAD  LADIES. 

It  is  difficult  or  impossible  to  compare  the  masterpieces  of 
the  world.  It  is  easy  and  natural  to  take  the  measure  of 
a  particular  writer  and  to  establish  a  scale  of  his  work. 

Villon  is  certainly  in  the  small  first  group  of  the  poets. 
His  little  work,  like  that  of  Catullus,  like  that  of  Gray,  is 
up,  high,  completed  and  permanent.  And  within  that 
little  work  this  famous  Ballade  is  by  far  the  greatest 
thing. 

It  contains  all  his  qualities  :  not  in  the  ordinary  propor- 
tion of  his  charader,  but  in  that  better,  exadl  proportion 
which  existed  in  him  when  his  inspiration  was  most  ardent: 
for  the  poem  has  underlying  it  somewhere  a  trace  of  his 
irony,  it  has  all  his  ease  and  rapidity — excellent  in  any  poet 
— and  it  is  carried  forward  by  that  vigour  I  have  named, 
a  force  which  drives  it  well  upwards  and  forward  to  its 
foaming  in  the  seventh  line  of  the  third  verse. 

The  sound  of  names  was  delightful  to  him,  and  he  loved 
to  use  it;  he  had  also  that  character  of  right  verse,  by 
which  the  poet  loves  to  put  little  separate  pidures  like 
medallions  into  the  body  of  his  writing  :  this  Villon  loved, 
as  I  shall  show  in  other  examples,  and  he  has  it  here. 

47 


THE  DEAD  LADIES. 

The  end  of  the  middle  ages  also  is  strongly  in  this  ap- 
peal or  confession  of  mortality;  their  legends,  their  deli- 
cacy, their  perpetual  contemplation  of  death. 

But  of  all  the  Poem's  qualities,  its  run  of  words  is  far 
the  finest. 


48 


THE  DEAD  LADIES. 

Di£fes  moy  oii,  nen  quel  pays 

Est  Flora  la  belle  Rommaine; 

Archipiada^  ne  Thais ^ 

^ui  fut  sa  cousine  germaine; 

Echo^  parlant  quand  bruyt  on  maine 

Dessus  riviere  ou  sus  estan^ 

^ui  beaulte  ot  trap  plus  quhmnaine? 

Mais  oil  sont  les  neiges  d*  ant  an? 

Oic  est  la  tres  sage  Hellois^ 
Pour  qui  fut  chastre  et  puis  moyne 
Pierre  Esbaillart  a  Saint-Denis? 
Pour  son  amour  ot  cest  essoyne. 
Semblablement^  oil  est  la  royne 
^ui  commanda  que  Buridan 
Fust  gede  en  ung  sac  en  Saine? 
Mais  oil  sont  les  neiges  d^antan  ! 

Lo  Royne  Blanche  comme  un  lis^ 
^ui  chantoit  a  voix  de  seraine; 
Berte  au  grant  pie  Bietris,  Allis  ; 
Haremburgis  qui  tint  le  Maine^ 
Et  yehanne^  la  bonne  Lorraine^ 
^u'  Englois  brulerent  a  Rouan; 
Oil  sont  elles,  Fierge  souvraine? 
Mais  oil  sont  les  neiges  d^antan! 
49 


THE  DEAD  LADIES. 


ENFOI. 

Prince^  n'enquerez  de  sepmaine 
Ou  elks  sont,  ne  de  cest  ariy 
^ue  ce  reffra'in  ne  vous  rema'tne: 
Mais  ou  sont  les  netges  d^antanf 


50 


AN  EXCERPT  FROM  THE  GRANT 
TESTAMENT. 

{Stanzas  75-79.) 


AN  EXCERPT    FROM    THE    GRANT    TESTA- 
MENT. 

Villon's  whole  surviving  work  is  in  the  form  of  two 
rhymed  wills — one  short,  one  long  :  and  in  the  latter, 
Ballads  and  Songs  are  put  in  each  in  their  place,  as  the 
tenour  of  the  verse  suggests  them. 

Thus  the  last  Ballade,  that  of  the  "  Dead  Ladies,"  comes 
after  a  couple  of  strong  stanzas  upon  the  necessity  of  death 
— and  so  forth. 

One  might  choose  any  passage,  almost,  out  of  the  mass 
to  illustrate  the  charaAer  of  this  "Testament"  in  which 
the  separate  poems  are  imbedded.  I  have  picked  those 
round  about  the  Sooth  line,  the  verses  in  which  he  is  per- 
haps least  brilliant  and  most  tender. 


53 


AN  EXCERPT  FROM  THE  GRANT  TESTAMENT. 

LXXV. 

Premier  je  donne  ma  povre  ame 

A  la  benoUte  Trinite^ 

Et  la  commande  a  Nostre  Dame 

Chambre  de  la  divinitej 

Priant  toute  la  charite 

Des  d'tgnes  neuf  Ordres  des  cieulxy 

^46  par  eulx  soit  ce  don  parte 

Devant  le  trosne  precieux. 

LXXVI. 

Itemy  man  corps  je  donne  et  laisse 
A  notre  grant  mere  la  terre; 
Les  vers  n*y  trouveront  grant  gresse : 
Trap  luy  a  fait  f aim  dure  guerre. 
Or  luy  soit  delivre  grant  erre : 
De  terre  vinty  en  terre  tourne. 
Toute  chose y  se  par  trap  n'errey 
Voulentiers  en  son  lieu  retourne; 

LXXVII. 

Itemy  et  a  mon  plus  que  pere 
Maistre  Guillaume  de  Villon 
^ui  m'este  a  plus  doulx  que  mere, 
Enfant  esleve  de  maillon, 
55 


AN  EXCERPT  FROM  THE  GRANT  TESTAMENT. 

Degete  nCa  de  maint  boullon 
Et  de  cestuy  pas  ne  s'esioye 
Et  luy  requiers  a  genouUon 
^uil  nen  laisse  toute  la  joy e. 

LXXVIII. 

ye  luy  donne  ma  Librairie 
Et  le  Romman  du  Pet  au  Deable 
Lequel  Maistre  Guy  Tabarie 
Grossa  qui  est  horns  veritable. 
Por  cayers  est  soubz  une  table^ 
Combien  qu^il  soit  rudement  fait 
La  matiere  est  si  tres  notable^ 
^u'elle  amende  tout  le  mesfait. 

LXXIX. 

Item  donne  a  ma  povre  mere 
Pour  saluer  nostre  Maistresse.^ 
^ui  pour  moy  ot  doleur  amere 
Dieu  le  scetj  et  mainte  tristesse; 
Autre  Cbasteln'ay  nifortresse 
Oil  me  retraye  corps  et  ame 
^uand  sur  moy  court  malle  destresse 
Ne  ma  mere^  la  povre  femme  ! 


56 


THE  BALLADE  OF  OUR  LADY. 

{Written  by  Villon  for  his  mother.^ 


THE  BALLADE  OF  OUR  LADY. 

The  abrupt  ending  of  the  last  extract,  the  79th  stanza  of 
the  "  Grant  Testament  " — "  I  give  ..."  and  then  no  ob- 
je6live  (apparently)  added — is  an  excellent  example  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  whole  is  conceived  and  of  the  way  in 
which  the  separate  poems  are  pieced  into  the  general  work. 

What  "  he  gives  .  .  ."  to  his  mother  is  this  "  Ballade  of 
our  Lady,"  written,  presumably,  long  before  the  "will" 
and  put  in  here  and  thus  after  being  carefully  led  up  to. 

These  thirty-seven  lines  are  more  famous  in  their  own 
country  than  abroad.  They  pour  from  the  well  of  a  reHgion 
which  has  not  failed  in  the  place  where  Villon  wrote,  and 
they  present  that  reUgion  in  a  manner  peculiar  and  national. 

Apart  from  its  piety  and  its  exquisite  tenderness,  two 
qualities  of  Villon  are  to  be  specially  found  in  this  poem  : 
his  vivid  phrase,  such  as : 

"  Emperiere  des  infernaux  paluz" 

(a  discovery  of  which  he  was  so  proud  that  he  repeated  it 
elsewhere)  or : 

"j^  tres  chiere  jeunesse." 

And  secondly  the  curiously  processional  effe(5l  of  the  metre 

59 


THE  BALLADE  OF  OUR  LADY. 

and  of  the  construdlion  of  the  stanzas — the  extra  line  and 
the  extra  foot  lend  themselves  to  a  c haunt  in  their  balanced 
slow  rhythm,  as  any  one  can  find  for  himself  by  reading 
the  lines  to  some  church  sing-song  as  he  goes. 


60 


THE  BALLADE  OF  OUR  LADT. 

Dame  des  cieulx^  regente  terrienne^ 
Emperiere  des  infernaux  paluz^ 
Recevez  moy^  vostre  humble  chrestienne^ 
^ue  comprinse  soye  entre  vos  esleuz^ 
Ce  non  obstant  quoncques  rien  ne  valuz. 
Les  biens  de  vous,  ma  dame  ei  ma  maistressCy 
Sont  trop  plus  grans  que  ne  suis  pecheressey 
Sans  lesquelz  biens  ame  ne  peut  merir 
N'avoir  les  cieulx,  je  rCen  suis  jungleresse. 
En  cestefoi  je  veuil  vivre  et  mourir. 

A  vostre  fils  di£le  que  je  suis  sienne; 
De  luy  soyent  mes  pechiez  aboluz : 
Pardonne  moy^  comme  a  PEgipcienne^ 
Ou  comme  il  feist  au  clerc  Theophilus^ 
Lequel  par  vous  fut  quitte  et  absoluz^ 
Combien  qu^il  eust  au  Deable  fait  promesse. 
Preservez  moy^  que  ne  face  jamais  ce 
Vierge  portant^  sans  rompure  encourir 
Le  sacrement  quon  celehre  a  la  messe. 
En  ceste  foy  je  veuil  vivre  et  mourir. 

Femme  je  suis  povrette  et  ancienne 
^ui  riens  ne  scay;  oncques  lettre  ne  leuz; 
Au  moustier  voy  dont  suis  paroissienne 
Paradis  fainty  oii  sont  harpes  et  /«z, 
Et  ung  enfer  oii  dampnez  sont  boulluz : 
6i 


THE  BALLADE  OF  OUR  LADY. 

Vung  me  fait  paour^  /'  autre  joy e  et  Hesse. 
La  joy e  avoir  me  fay,  haulte  Deesse^ 
A  qui  pecheurs  doivent  tous  recourir^ 
Comblez  de  Foy^  sansfainte  tie  paresse. 
En  ceste  foy  je  veuil  vivre  et  mourir. 

ENFOI 

Vous  portastesj  digne  vierge^  princesse^ 
"Jesus  regnant^  qui  tia  ne  fin  ne  cesse. 
Le  Tout  Puissant^  prenant  notre  foiblesse^ 
Laissa  les  cieulx  et  nous  vint  secourir^ 
Offrit  a  mart  sa  tres  chiere  jeunesse. 
Nostre  Seigneur  tel  est^  tel  le  confesse^ 

En  ceste  foy  je  veuil  vivre  et  mourir. 


6z 


THE  DEAD  LORDS. 


THE  DEAD  LORDS. 

As  I  have  not  wished  to  mix  up  smaller  things  with  greater 
I  haye  put  this  ballade  separate  from  that  of"  the  Ladies," 
though  it  diredly  follows  it  as  an  after-thought  in  Villon's 
own  book.  For  the  former  is  one  of  the  masterpieces  of 
the  world,  and  this,  though  very  Villon,  is  not  great. 

W^hat  it  has  got  is  the  full  latter  mediaeval  love  of  odd 
names  and  reminiscences,  and  also  to  the  full,  the  humour 
of  the  scholarly  tavern,  which  was  the  *'  Mermaid  "  of  that 
generation:  as  the  startling  regret  of: 

Helas!  et  le  bon  roy  d'Espaigne 
Duquel  je  ne  s^ay  pas  le  nom.  .  .  . 

and  the  addition,  after  the  false  exit  of  "je  me  desiste  " 

Encore  fais  une  question 

He  laughed  well  over  it,  and  was  perhaps  not  thirsty 
when  it  was  written. 


65 


THE  DEAD  LORDS. 

^ui  plus ?  Oil  est  le  Tiers  Calixte 
Dernier  deced'e  de  ce  nom^ 
^ui  quatre  ans  tint  le  papaliste? 
Alphonce^  le  roy  d'Arragon^ 
Le  Gracieux  Due  de  Bourbon^ 
Et  Artus^  le  Due  de  Bretaigne^ 
Et  Charles  Septiesme^  le  Bon?  .  .  .  . 
Mais  oil  est  le  preux  Charle?naigne! 

Semblablement  le  roy  Scotisie 
^ui  demy  face  ot^  ce  dit  on^ 
Vermeille  comme  une  ainatiste 
Depuis  le  front  jusquau  menton? 
Le  roy  de  Chippre^  de  renom? 
Helas  !  et  le  hon  roy  d' Espaigne 
Duquel  je  ne  s^ay  pas  le  nam?  .  .  . 
JlAais  oit  est  le  preux  Charlemaigne ! 

D^en  plus  parler  je  me  desiste 
Le  7nonde  n'est  qu'abusion. 
II  n  ^est  qui  contre  mort  resiste 
Le  que  treuve  provision. 
Encor  fais  une  question : 
Lancelot,  le  roy  de  Behaigne, 
Oil  est  il?  Ou  est  son  tayon?  .... 
Mais  ou  est  le  preux  Charlemaigne! 
^7 


THE  DEAD  LORDS. 


ENroi. 

Oil  est  Claguin,  le  ton  Breton? 
Ou  le  conte  daulphin  cV Auvergne 
Et  le  h on  feu  Due  d^  Alen^onf  .... 
Mah  ou.  est  le  preux  Charlemaigne! 


68 


THE  DIRGE. 


THE  DIRGE. 

This  is  the  best  ending  for  any  set  of  verses  one  may  choose 
out  of  Villon.  It  follows  and  completes  the  epitaph  which 
in  his  will  he  orders  to  be  written  in  charcoal — or  scratched 
— above  his  tomb:  the  sad,  sardonic  odlave  of  "the  little 
scholar  and  poor."  It  is  a  kind  of  added  dirge  to  be  read 
by  those  who  pass  and  to  be  hummed  or  chaunted  over 
him  dead.    But  it  is  a  rondeau. 

See  how  sharp  it  is  with  the  salt  and  vinegar  of  his 
pressed  courageous  smile — and  how  he  cannot  run  away 
from  his  religion  or  from  his  power  over  sudden  and  vivid 
beauty. 

"  Sire — et  clarte  perpetuelle  " — which  last  are  the  best 
two  words  that  ever  stood  in  the  vulgar  for  lux  perpetua. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  as  time  went  on,  more  and  more 
people  learnt  these  things  by  heart. 


71 


RONDEAU. 

Repos  eternelj  donne  a  cil, 

Sire^  et  clarte  perpetuclle, 

^ui  vaillant  plat  ni  escuelle 

N'eut  oncques^  rCung  brain  de  percil. 

II  fut  re%^  chiefs  bar  be  et  sourcil^ 

Comme  un  navet  qu'on  ret  ou  pelle. 

Repos  eternel  donne  a  cil. 

Rigueur  le  transmit  en  exil 
Et  luy  frappa  au  cul  la  pelle ^ 
Non  obstant  qu'il  dit  "  J' en  appelle  1 ' 
^ui  n  est  pas  terme  trap  subtil. 

Repos  eternel  donne  a  cil. 


73 


MAROT. 


CLEMENT  MAROT. 

If  in  Charles  of  Orleans  the  first  note  of  the  French  Re- 
naissance is  heard,  if  in  Villon  you  find  first  its  energy 
appearing  above  ground,  yet  both  are  forerunners  only. 

With  Marot  one  is  in  the  full  tide  of  the  movement. 
The  discovery  of  America  had  preceded  his  birth  by  three 
or  perhaps  four  years.  His  early  manhood  was  filled  with 
all  that  ferment,  all  that  enormous  branching  out  of  human 
life,  which  was  connedled  with  the  expansion  of  Spain ;  he 
was  in  the  midst  of  the  scarlet  and  the  gold.  A  man  just 
of  age  when  Luther  was  first  condemned,  living  his  adlive 
manhood  through  the  experience  of  the  great  battlefields 
in  Italy,  wounded  (a  valet  rather  than  a  soldier)  at  Pavia, 
the  perpetual  chorus  of  Francis  I.,  privileged  to  witness 
the  first  stroke  of  the  pickaxe  against  the  mediaeval  Louvre, 
and  to  see  the  first  Italian  dignity  of  the  great  stone  houses 
on  the  Loire — being  all  this,  the  Renaissance  was  the  stuff 
on  which  his  life  was  worked. 

His  blood  and  descent  were  typical  enough  of  the  work 
he  had  to  do.  His  own  father  was  one  of  the  last  set 
rhymers  of  the  dying  Middle  Ages.  All  his  boyhood  was 
passed  among  that  multitude  of  little  dry  "  writers-down  of 
verse  "  with  which,  in  Paris,  the  Middle  Ages  died ;  they 
were  not  a  swarm,  for  they  were  not  living;  they  were  a 

11 


MAROT 

heap  of  dust.  All  his  early  work  is  touched  with  the  learned, 
tedious,  unbeautiful  industry  which  was  all  that  the  elder 
men  round  Louis  XII,  could  bring  to  letters.  By  a  happy 
accident  there  were  mixed  in  him,  however,  two  vigorous 
springs  of  inspiration,  each  ready  to  receive  the  new  forces 
that  were  working  in  Europe,  each  destined  to  take  the 
fullest  advantage  of  the  new  time.  These  springs  were  first, 
learned  Normandy,  quiet,  legal, well-founded,  deep  in  grass, 
wealthy ;  and  secondly,  the  arid  brilliancy  of  the  South : 
Ouercy  and  the  country  round  Cahors.  His  father  was  a 
Norman  pure  bred,  who  had  come  down  and  married  into 
that  sharp  land  where  the  summer  is  the  note  of  the  whole 
year,  and  where  the  traveller  chiefly  remembers  vineyards, 
lizards  on  the  walls,  short  shadows,  sleep  at  noon,  and  blind- 
ing roads  of  dust.  The  first  years  of  his  childhood  were 
spent  in  the  southern  town,  so  that  the  south  entered  into 
him  thoroughly.  The  language  that  he  never  wrote,  the 
Languedoc,  was  that,  perhaps,  in  which  he  thought  during 
all  his  life.    It  was  his  mother's. 

It  has  been  noticed  by  all  his  modern  readers,  it  will  be 
noticed  probably  with  peculiar  force  by  English  readers, 
that  the  fame  of  Marot  during  his  lifetime  and  his  histor- 
ical position  as  the  leader  of  the  Renaissance  has  in  it  some- 
thing exaggerated  and  false.  One  cannot  help  a  perpetual 
doubt  as  to  whether  the  religious  quarrel,  the  influence  of 
the  Court,  the  strong  personal  friendships  and  enmities 
which  surrounded  him  had  not  had  more  to  do  with  his 
reputation  than  his  faculty,  or  even  his  genius,  for  rhyme. 

78 


MAROT 

Whenever  he  wanted  ;^ioo  he  asked  it  of  the  King 
with  the  grave  promise  that  he  would  bestow  upon  him 
immortality. 

From  Ronsard,  or  from  Du  Bellay,  we,  here  in  the 
north,  could  understand  that  phrase;  from  Marot  it  carries 
a  flavour  of  the  grotesque.  Ready  song,  indeed,  and  a  great 
power  over  the  material  one  uses  in  singing  last  indefinitely ; 
they  last  as  long  as  the  sublime  or  the  terrible  in  literature, 
but  we  forbear  to  associate  with  them — perhaps  unjustly 
— the  conception  of  greatness.  If  indeed  anyone  were  to 
maintain  that  Marot  was  not  an  excellent  and  admirable 
poet  he  would  prove  himself  ignorant  of  the  language  in 
which  Marot  wrote,  but  let  the  most  sympathetic  turn  to 
what  is  best  in  his  verse,  let  them  turn  for  instance  to  that 
charming  lyric:  *^  A  sa  Dame  Malade"  or  to  "  The  Ballad 
of  Old  Time,"  or  even  to  that  really  large  and  riotous  chorus 
of  the  vine,  and  they  will  see  that  it  is  the  kind  of  thing 
which  is  amplified  by  music,  and  which  sometimes  demands 
the  aid  of  music  to  appear  at  all.  They  will  see  quite 
plainly  that  Marot  took  pleasure  in  playing  with  words  and 
arranged  them  well,  felt  keenly  and  happily,  played  a  full 
lyre,  but  they  will  doubt  whether  poetry  was  necessarily 
for  him  the  most  serious  business  of  life. 

Why,  then,  has  he  taken  the  place  claimed  for  him,  and 
why  is  he  firmly  secure  in  the  place  of  master  of  the  cere- 
monies, as  it  were,  to  that  glorious  century  whose  dawn 
he  enjoyed  and  helped  to  beautify  ? 

I  will  explain  it. 

79 


MAROT 

It  is  because  he  is  national.  He  represents  not  what  is 
most  this,  or  most  that — "  highest,"  "  noblest,"  "  truest," 
"best,"  and  all  the  rest  of  it — in  his  countrymen,  but  rather 
what  they  have  most  in  common. 

Did  you  meet  him  to-day  in  the  Strand  you  would  know 
at  once  that  you  had  to  do  with  a  Frenchman,  and,  pro- 
bably, with  a  kind  of  poet. 

He  was  short,  square  in  the  shoulders,  tending  in  middle 
age  to  fatness.  A  dark  hair  and  beard;  large  brown  eyes 
of  the  south;  a  great,  rounded,  wrinkled  forehead  like 
Verlaine's;  a  happy  mouth,  a  nose  very  insignificant,  com- 
pleted him.  When  we  meet  somewhere,  under  cypress  trees 
at  last,  these  great  poets  of  a  better  age,  and  find  Ronsard 
a  very  happy  man,  Du  Bellay,  a  gentleman ;  then  Malherbe, 
for  all  that  he  was  a  northerner,  we  may  mistake,  if  we  find 
him,  for  a  Catalonian.  Villon,  however  Parisian,  will  appear 
the  Bohemian  that  many  cities  have  produced;  Charles  of 
Orleans  may  seem  at  first  but  one  of  that  very  high  nobility 
remnants  of  which  are  still  to  be  discovered  in  Europe. 
But  when  we  see  Marot,  our  first  thought  will  certainly  be, 
as  I  have  said,  that  we  have  come  across  a  Frenchman;  and 
the  more  French  for  a  touch  of  the  commonplace. 

See  how  French  was  the  whole  career! 

Whatever  is  new  attrads  him.  The  reformation  attracts 
him.  It  was  chic  to  have  to  do  with  these  new  things.  He 
had  the  French  ignorance  of  what  was  foreign  and  alien ; 
the  French  curiosity  to  meddle  with  it  because  it  had  come 
from  abroad;  the  French  passion  for  opposing,  for  strug- 

80 


MAROT 

gling; — and  beneath  it  all  the  large  French  indifFerence  to 
the  problem  of  evil  (or  whatever  you  like  to  call  it),  the 
changeless  French  content  in  certitude,  upon  which  ease, 
indeed,  as  upon  a  rock,  the  Church  of  Gaul  has  perma- 
nently stood  and  will  continuously  repose. 

He  has  been  a  sore  puzzle  to  the  men  who  have  never 
heard  of  these  things.  Calvin  (that  appaUing  exception 
who  had  nothing  in  him  of  France  except  lucidity)  could 
make  neither  head  nor  tail  of  him.  Geneva  was  glad  enough 
to  chaunt  through  the  nose  his  translations  of  the  Psalms, 
but  it  was  woefully  puzzled  at  his  salacity,  and  the  town 
was  very  soon  too  hot  to  hold  him  in  his  exile.  And  as  for 
the  common,  partial,  and  ignorant  histories  of  France, 
written  in  our  tongue,  they  generally  make  him  a  kind  of 
backslider,  who  might  have  been  a  Huguenot  (and — who 
knows  .f* — have  thrown  the  Sacrament  to  beasts  with  the 
best  of  them)  save  that,  unhappily,  he  did  not  persevere. 
Whatever  they  say  of  him  (and  some  have  hardly  heard 
of  him)  one  thing  is  quite  certain:  that  they  do  not  under- 
stand him,  and  that  if  they  did  they  would  like  him  still 
less  than  they  do. 

He  was  national  in  the  rapidity  of  the  gesture  of  his 
mind  as  in  that  of  his  body  :  in  his  being  attracted  here  and 
there,  watching  this  and  that  suddenly,  like  a  bird. 

He  was  national  in  his  power  of  sharp  recovery  from 
any  emotion  back  into  his  normal  balance. 

He  was  national  in  that  he  depended  upon  companions, 
and  stood  for  a  crowd,  and  deplored  all  isolation.    He  was 

8l  G 


MAROT 

national  in  that  he  had  nothing  strenuous  about  him,  and 
that  he  was  amiable,  and  if  he  had  heard  of  "earnest"  men, 
he  would  have  laughed  at  them  a  little,  as  people  who  did 
not  see  the  whole  of  life. 

He  was  especially  national  (and  it  is  here  that  the  poet 
returns)  in  that  most  national  of  all  things — a  complete 
sympathy  with  the  atmosphere  of  the  native  tongue.  Thus 
men  debate  a  good  deal  upon  the  poetic  value  of  Words- 
worth, but  it  is  certain,  when  one  sees  how  bathed  he  is  in 
the  sense  of  English  words,  their  harmony  and  balance, 
that  the  man  is  entirely  English,  that  no  other  nation  could 
have  produced  him,  and  that  he  will  be  most  difficult  for 
foreigners  to  understand.  You  will  not  translate  into  French 
or  any  other  language  the  simplicity  of 

"  Glimpses  that  should  make  me  less  forlorn." 
Nor  can  you  translate, so  as  to  give  its  own  kind  of  grandeur 

"  Et  arrivoit  pour  benistre  la  vigne." 

Apart  from  his  place  in  letters,  see  how  national  he  is  in 
what  he  does ! 

He  buys  two  bits  of  land,  he  talks  of  them  continually, 
sees  to  them,  visits  them.  They  are  quite  little  bits  of  land. 
He  calls  one  Clement,  and  the  other  Marot!  Here  is  a 
whimsicality  you  would  not  find,  I  think,  among  another 
people. 

He  has  the  hatred  of  *'  sprawling  "  in  his  particular  art 
which  is  the  chief  aesthetic  character  of  the  French;  but  he 

82 


MAROT 

has  the  tendency  to  excess  in  opinion  or  in  general  expres- 
sion which  is  their  chief  political  fault. 

It  is  thus,  then,  that  I  think  he  should  be  regarded  and 
that  I  would  desire  to  present  him.  It  is  thus,  I  am  sure, 
that  he  should  be  read  if  one  is  to  know  why  he  has  taken 
so  great  a  place  in  the  reverence  and  the  history  of  the 
French  people. 

And  it  is  in  this  aspedl  that  he  may  worthily  introduce 
much  greater  things,  the  Pleiade  and  Ronsard. 


83 


OF  COURTING  LONG  AGO. 

{The  Eighth  of  the  Roundels.) 


OF  COURTING  LONG  AGO. 

This  is  a  fair  enough  specimen  of  Marot  at  his  daily  gait: 
an  easy  versifier  "  on  a  theme  "  and  no  more.  I  have  said 
that  it  is  unjust  to  judge  him  on  that  level,  and  I  have  said 
why;  but  I  give  this  to  give  the  man  as  he  moved  domes- 
tically to  the  admiration  of  the  court  and  of  his  friends  in 
a  time  which  missed,  for  example,  the  epic  character  of  the 
last  six  lines  of  "Le  Beau  Tettin,"  and  which  hardly  com- 
prehended of  what  value  his  pure  lyric  enthusiasms  would 
be  to  a  sadder  and  drier  posterity. 


87 


OF  COURTING  LONG  AGO. 

Au  hon  vieulx  temps  un  train  d^ amour  regnoity 
^ui  sans  grand  art  et  dons  se  demenoit^ 
Si  qu'un  boucquet  donne  d* amour  profonde 
S^estoit  donne  toute  la  terre  ronde: 
Car  seulement  au  cueur  on  se  prenoit. 

Et  Sly  par  casy  djouyr  on  venoit, 
Scavez-vous  bien  comme  on  s^entretenoitF 
Vingt  ansy  trente  ans;  cela  duroit  ung  monde 
Au  bon  vieulx  temps. 

Or  est  perdu  ce  qj^ amour  ordonnoity 
Rien  que  pleurs  fain£fZy  rien  que  changes  on  noyt. 
^lui  vouldra  done  qu'a  aymer  je  me  fondey 
II faulty  premier,  que  P amour  on  refonde 
Et  qu'on  la  meine  ainsi  qiCon  la  menoit 
Au  bon  vieulx  temps. 


89 


NOEL. 

{^The  Second  of  the  Chansons.) 


NOEL. 

But  here,  upon  the  contrary,  is  the  spontaneity  of  his  happy 
mind;  it  suggests  a  song;  one  can  hardly  read  it  without 
a  tune  in  one's  head,  so  simple  is  it  and  so  purely  lyrical: 
there  is  a  touch  of  the  dance  in  it,  too. 

In  these  little  things  of  Marot,  which  are  neither  learned 
(and  he  boasted  of  learning)  nor  set  and  dry  (and  his 
friends  especially  praised  his  precision),  a  great  poet  cer- 
tainly appears — in  short  revelations,  but  still  appears.  Un- 
fortunately there  are  not  enough  of  them. 

That  he  thought  "  like  a  Southerner,"  as  I  have  main- 
tained and  as  I  shall  show  by  a  further  example,  is  made  the 
more  probable  from  the  value  he  lends  to  the  feminine  e. 
The  excellent  rhythm  of  this  poem  you  will  only  get  by 
giving  the  feminine  e  the  value  of  a  drawn  out  syllable : 

"  L'efFea 
Est  faia: 
La  bel-le 
Pucel-le,"  etc. 

So  Spaniards,  Gascons,  Proven9aux,  Italians,  rhyme, 
and  all  those  of  the  south  who  have  retained  their  glorious 
"  a's"  and  *'  or's." 

93 


NOEL 

As  for  the  spirit  of  it — God  bless  him! — it  is  a  subjedt 
for  perpetual  merriment  to  think  of  such  a  man's  being 
taken  for  a  true  Huguenot  and  enmeshed,  even  for  a  while, 
in  the  nasty  cobweb  of  Geneva,  But  in  the  last  thing  I 
shall  quote,  when  he  is  Bacchic  for  the  vine,  you  will  see  it 
still  more. 


9+ 


NOEL. 

Une  pastourelle  gentille 
Et  ung  bergier  en  ung  verger 
Uautrhyer  en  jouant  a  la  bille 
S'entredisoienty  pour  abreger : 
Roger 
Bergier 
Legiere 
Berg'iere, 
C'est  trop  a  la  bille  j one; 
Chantons  Noe^  Noe^  Noe. 

Te  souvient-il  plus  du  prophete 
^ui  nous  dit  cas  de  si  hault  fai£i^ 
^ue  d^une  pucelle  parfaiSle 
Naistroit  ung  enfant  tout  parfaiSi? 
Ueffea 
EstfaiSi: 
La  belle 
Tucelle 
A  eu  ung  filz  du  del  voue: 
Chantons  Noe^  Noe,  Noe. 


95 


TWO  EPIGRAMS. 

{The  \\st  of  the  First  Book  and  the  tfith  of  the  Second.) 


TWO  EPIGRAMS. 

These  two  epigrams  are  again  but  examples  of  the  readi- 
ness, the  wit,  the  hard  surface  of  Marot,  and  they  needed  no 
more  poetry  than  was  in  Voltaire  or  Swift,  but  they  needed 
style.  It  was  this  absolute  and  standard  style  which  his 
contemporaries  chiefly  remarked  in  him:  the  marvel  was, 
that  being  mainly  such  an  epigrammatist  and  scholar,  and 
praised  and  supported  only  in  that  guise,  he  should  have 
carried  in  him  any,  or  rather  so  much,  fire. 

The  first  was  his  reply  to  a  Dixaine  the  king's  sister  had 
sent  him.   The  second  explains  itself. 


99 


TfVO  EPIGRAMS. 

Mes  creanciersj  qui  de  dixains  rtont  cure, 
Ont  leu  le  vostre;  et  sur  ce  leur  ay  diSl : 
^^Sire  Michely  sire  Bonaventure^ 
La  sceur  du  Roy  a  pour  moy  faiif  ce  dit." 
Lors  eulx  cuydans  quefusse  en  grand  crediif^ 
m^ont  appele  monsieur  a  cry  et  cor^ 
Et  m^a  valu  vostre  escript  aultant  qu^or; 
Car  promts  nHont  non  seulement  d^attendre^ 
J[4ais  d^en  pr  ester  ^  foy  de  mar  chanty  encor^ 
Et  j^ay  promisjfoy  de  Clement ^  d'en  prendre. 


Paris ^  tu  m^as  faiSf  maints  alarmeSy 
y usque  a  me  poursuivre  a  la  mort: 
ye  n^ay  que  blasonne  tes  armes : 
Un  ver^  quand  on  le  presse^  il  mord! 
Encor  la  coulpe  rrCen  remord. 
Ne  scay  de  toy  comment  sera; 
Afais  de  nous  deux  le  diable  emport 
Celuy  qui  recommencera. 


10I 


TO  HIS  LADY  IN  SICKNESS. 

{The  \6th  Epistle.) 


TO  HIS  LADY  IN  SICKNESS. 

It  is  the  way  this  is  printed  that  makes  some  miss  its  value. 
It  is,  like  all  the  best  he  wrote,  a  song;  it  needs  the  vary- 
ing time  of  human  expression,  the  efFed  of  tone,  the  repose 
and  the  re-lifting  of  musical  notes;  illuminated  thus  it 
greatly  charmed,  and  if  any  one  would  know  the  order  of 
such  a  tune,  why,  it  should  follow  the  punduation:  a 
cessation  at  the  third  line;  a  rise  of  rapid  accents  to  the 
thirteenth,  and  then  a  change;  the  last  three  lines  of  the 
whole  very  much  fuller  and  strong. 

So  I  would  hear  it  sung  on  a  winter  evening  in  an  old 
house  in  Auvergne,  and  re-enter  the  sixteenth  century  as 
I  heard. 


105 


) 


TO  HIS  LADY  IN  SICKNESS. 

Ma  mignonney 
yevous  donne 
Le  bon  jour, 
Le  sejour^ 
CTest  prison. 
Guerison 
Recouvrez, 
'Puis  ouvre% 
Vostre  parte 
Et  quon  sorte 
Vistement ; 
Car  Clement 
Le  vous  mande. 
Va^friande 
De  ta  bouchey 
^ui  se  couche 
En  danger 
Pour  manger 
Confitures; 
Si  tu  dures 
Trop  ma  lade  J 
Couleurfade 
Tu  prendras 
Et  perdras 
Uembonpoint. 
Dieu  te  doint, 
Sante  bonne^ 
Ma  mignonne. 
107 


THE  VINEYARD  SONG. 

{The  \th  of  the  Chansons.) 


THE  VINEYARD  SONG. 

Here  is  Marot's  best — even  though  many  of  his  native 
critics  will  not  admit  it  so;  but  to  feel  it  in  full  one  must 
be  exiled  from  the  vines. 

It  is  a  tapestry  of  the  Renaissance;  the  jolly  gods  of 
the  Renaissance,  the  old  gods  grown  Catholic  moving 
across  a  happier  stage.  Bacchus  in  long  robes  and  with 
solemnity  blessing  the  vine,  Silenus  and  the  hobbling  smith 
who  smithied  theSerpe,the  Holy  Vineyard  Knife  in  heaven, 
all  these  by  their  didion  and  their  flavour  recall  the  Autumn 
in  Herault  and  the  grapes  under  a  pure  sky,  pale  at  the 
horizon,  and  labourers  and  their  carts  in  the  vineyard,  and 
these  set  in  the  frame  of  that  great  time  when  Saturn  did 
return. 

All  the  poem  is  wine.  It  catches  its  rhymes  and  weaves 
them  in  and  in,  and  moves  rapid  and  careless  in  a  fugue, 
like  the  march  from  Asia  when  the  Panthers  went  before 
and  drew  the  car.  The  internal  rhythm  and  pulse  is  the 
clapping  of  hands  in  barns  at  evening  and  the  peasants' 
feet  dancing  freely  on  the  beaten  earth.  It  is  a  very  good 
song ;  it  remembers  the  treading  of  the  grapes  and  is  re- 
freshed by  the  mists  that  rise  at  evening  when  the  labour 
is  done. 


Ill 


\ 


THE  VINEYARD  SONG. 

Changeons  propos^  cest  trap  chante  d^amours, 
Ce  sont  clamours^  chantons  de  la  Serpette^ 
Tons  vignerons  ont  a  elle  recours^ 
Gest  leur  secours  pour  tailler  la  vignette. 
O  serpilette^  o  la  serpilonnette^ 
La  vignolette  est  par  toy  mise  sus^ 
Dont  les  bans  vins^  tous  les  ans^  sont  yssus! 

Le  dieu  Vulcain,  forgeron  des  haults  dteux^ 
Forgea  aux  cieulx  la  serpe  bien  taillante^ 
De  fin  acier^  trempe  en  bon  vin  vieulxy 
Pour  tailler  mieulx  et  estre  plus  vaillante. 
Bacchus  le  vante  et  dit  qvielle  est  seante 
Et  convenante  a  Noe  le  bonshom 
Pour  en  tailler  la  vigne  en  la  saison. 

Bacchus  alors  cbappeau  de  treille  avoit^ 
Et  arrivoit  pour  benistre  la  vigne; 
Avec  fiascons  Silenus  le  suivoit^ 
Lequel  beuvoit  aussi  droijf  qtiune  ligne; 
Puis  il  trepigne,  et  se  fai£i  une  bigne; 
Comme  une  guigne  estoit  rouge  son  nez. 
Beaucoup  de  gens  de  sa  race  sont  nez. 


113 


RONSARD. 


RONSARD. 

If  it  be  true  that  words  create  for  themselves  a  special 
atmosphere,  and  that  their  mere  sound  calls  up  vague  outer 
things  beyond  their  strid  meaning,  so  it  is  true  that  the 
names  of  the  great  poets  by  their  mere  sound,  by  something 
more  than  the  recolledlion  of  their  work,  produce  an  at- 
mosphere corresponding  to  the  quality  of  each;  and  the 
name  of  Ronsard  throws  about  itself  like  an  aureole  the 
characfters  of  fecundity,  of  leadership,  and  of  fame. 

A  group  of  men  to  which  allusion  will  be  made  in 
connexion  with  Du  Bellay  set  out  with  a  programme, 
developed  a  determined  school,  and  fixed  the  literary 
renaissance  of  France  at  its  highest  point.  They  steeped 
themselves  in  antiquity,  and  they  put  to  the  greatest  value 
it  has  ever  received  the  name  of  poet;  they  demanded  that 
the  poet  should  be  a  kind  of  king,  or  seer.  Half  seriously, 
half  as  a  produdl  of  mere  scholarship,  the  pagan  conception 
of  the  muse  and  of  inspiration  filled  them. 

More  than  that;  in  their  earnest,  and,  as  it  seemed  at 
first,  artificial  work,  they  formed  the  French  language. 
Some  of  its  most  famous  and  most  familiar  words  proceed 
from  them — for  instance,  the  word  Patrie.    Some  few  of 

117 


RONSARD. 

their  exotic  Greek  and  Latin  adaptations  were  dropped; 
the  greater  part  remained.  They  have  excluded  from 
French — as  some  think  to  the  impoverishment  of  that 
language — most  elements  of  the  Gothic — the  inversion  of 
the  adjeftive,  the  frequent  suppression  of  the  relative,  the 
irregularity  of  form,  which  had  survived  from  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  which  make  the  older  French  poetry  so  much 
more  sympathetic  to  the  Englishman  than  is  the  new — all 
these  were  destroyed  by  the  group  of  men  of  whom  I  speak. 
They  were  called  by  their  contemporaries  the  Pleiade,  for 
they  were  seven  stars. 

Now,  of  these,  Ronsard  was  easily  the  master.  He  had 
that  power  which  our  anaemic  age  can  hardly  comprehend, 
of  writing,  writing,  writing,  without  fear  of  exhaustion, 
without  irritability  or  self-criticism,  without  danger  of 
comparing  the  better  with  the  worse.  Five  great  volumes 
of  small  print,  all  good — men  of  that  facility  never  write 
the  really  paltry  things — all  good,  and  most  of  it  glorious; 
some  of  it  on  the  level  which  only  the  great  poets  reach 
here  and  there.  It  is  in  reading  this  man  who  rhymed  un- 
ceasingly for  forty  years,  who  made  of  poetry  an  occupation 
as  well  as  a  glory,  and  who  let  it  fill  the  whole  of  his  life, 
that  one  feels  how  much  such  creative  power  has  to  do  with 
the  value  of  verse.  There  is  a  kind  of  good  humility  about 
it,  the  humility  of  a  man  who  does  not  look  too  closely  at 
himself,  and  the  health  of  a  soul  at  full  stride,  going 
forward.  You  may  open  Ronsard  at  any  page,  and  find  a 
beauty ;  you  may  open  any  one  of  the  sonnets  at  random, 

ii8 


RONSARD. 

and  in  translating  it  discover  that  you  are  compelled  to  a 
fine  English,  because  he  is  saying,  plainly,  great  things. 
And  of  these  sonnets,  note  you,  he  would  write  thirty  at 
a  stretch,  and  then  twenty,  and  then  a  second  book,  with 
seventy  more.  So  that  as  one  reads  one  cannot  help  under- 
standing that  Italian  who  said  a  man  was  no  poet  unless 
he  could  rap  out  a  century  of  sonnets  from  time  to  time; 
and  one  is  reminded  of  the  general  vigour  of  the  age  and 
of  the  way  in  which  art  of  all  sorts  was  mingled  up  together, 
when  one  remembers  the  tags  of  verses,  just  such  verses  as 
these,  which  are  yet  to  be  seen  in  our  galleries  set  down 
doubtfully  on  the  margin  of  their  sketches  by  the  great 
artists  of  Italy. 

Ronsard,  with  these  qualities  of  a  leader,  unconscious, 
as  all  true  leaders  are,  of  the  causes  of  his  leadership,  and 
caring,  as  all  true  leaders  do,  for  nothing  in  leadership  save 
the  glory  it  brings  with  it,  had  also,  as  have  all  leaders, 
chiefly  the  power  of  drawing  in  a  multitude  of  friends. 
The  peculiar  head  of  his  own  group,  he  very  soon  became 
the  head  of  all  the  movement  of  his  day.  He  had  made 
letters  really  great  in  the  minds  of  his  contemporaries,  and 
having  so  made  them,  appeared  before  them  as  a  master  of 
those  letters.  Certainly,  as  I  shall  quote  him  in  a  moment 
when  I  come  to  his  dying  speech,  he  was  '*  satiated  with 
glory." 

Yet  this  man  did  not  in  his  personality  convey  that 
largeness  which  was  his  principal  mark.  His  face  was 
narrow,   long    and   aquiline;    his   health   uneven.    It  was 

119 


RON  SARD. 

evidently  his  soul  which  made  men  quickly  forget  the  ill- 
matched  case  which  bore  it ;  for  almost  alone  of  the  great 
poets  he  was  consistently  happy,  and  there  poured  out  from 
him  not  only  this  unceasing  torrent  of  verse,  but  also 
advice,  sustenance,  and  a  kind  of  secondary  inspiration  for 
others. 

In  yet  another  matter  he  was  a  leader,  and  a  leader  of 
the  utmost  weight,  not  the  cause,  perhaps,  but  certainly 
the  principal  example  of  the  trend  which  the  mind  of  the 
nation  was  taking  as  the  sixteenth  century  drew  to  a  close. 
I  mean  in  the  matter  of  religion,  upon  whose  colour  every 
society  depends,  which  is  the  note  even  of  a  national  lan- 
guage, and  which  seems  to  be  the  ultimate  influence  beyond 
which  no  historical  analysis  can  carry  a  thinking  man. 

But  even  those  who  will  not  admit  the  truth  of  this 
should  watch  the  theory  closely,  for  with  the  religious 
trend  of  France  is  certainly  bound  up,  and,  as  I  would 
maintain,  on  such  an  influence  is  dependent,  that  ultimate 
setting  of  the  French  classic,  that  winding  up  of  the 
Renaissance,  with  which  I  shall  deal  in  the  essay  upon 
Malherbe. 

The  stream  of  Catholicism  was  running  true.  The  nation 
was  tumbling  back  after  a  high  and  turbulent  flood  into 
the  channel  it  had  scoured  for  itself  by  the  unbroken 
energies  of  a  thousand  years.  It  is  no  accident  that  Ronsard, 
that  Du  Bellay,  were  churchmen.  It  is  a  type.  It  is  a  type 
of  the  truth  that  the  cloth  admitted  poets;  of  the  truth  that 
in  the  great  battle  whose  results  yet  trouble  Europe,  here^ 

120 


RONSARD. 

on  the  soil  where  the  great  questions  are  fought  out, 
Puritanism  was  already  killed.  The  epicurean  in  them  both, 
glad  and  ready  in  Ronsard,  sombre  and  Lucretian  in  Du 
Bellay,  jarred  indeed  in  youth  against  their  vows;  but  that 
it  should  have  been  tolerated,  that  it  should  have  led  to  no 
excess  or  angry  revolt,  was  typical  of  their  moment.  It 
was  typical,  finally,  of  their  generation  that  all  this  mixture 
of  the  Renaissance  with  the  Church  matured  at  last  into  its 
natural  fruit,  for  in  the  case  of  Ronsard  we  have  a  noble 
expression  of  perfe(5t  Christianity  at  the  end. 

In  the  November  of  1585  he  felt  death  upon  him;  he 
had  himself  borne  to  his  home  as  soon  as  the  Huguenot 
bands  had  left  it,  ravaged  and  devastated  as  it  was.  He 
found  it  burnt  and  looted,  but  it  reminded  him  of  child- 
hood and  of  the  first  springs  of  his  great  river  of  verse.  A 
profound  sadness  took  him.  He  was  but  in  his  sixty-second 
year,  his  mind  had  not  felt  any  chill  of  age.  He  could  not 
sleep;  poppies  and  soporifics  failed  him.  He  went  now  in 
his  coach,  now  on  a  litter  from  place  to  place  in  that 
country  side  which  he  had  rendered  famous,  and  saw  the 
Vendomois  for  the  last  time ;  its  cornfields  all  stubble  under 
a  cold  and  dreary  sky.  And  in  each  place  he  waited  for  a 
while. 

But  death  troubled  him,  and  he  could  not  remain.  With- 
in a  fortnight  he  ordered  that  they  should  carry  him  south- 
ward to  the  Loire,  to  that  priory  of  which — by  a  custom  of 
privilege,  nobility  and  royal  favour — he  was  the  nominal 
head,  the  priory  which  is  "  the  eye  and  delight  of  Touraine  " 

T21 


RONSARD. 

— the  Isle  of  St.  Cosmo.  He  sickened  as  he  went.  The 
thirty  miles  or  so  took  him  three  painful  days;  twice,  all 
his  strength  failed  him,  and  he  lay  half  fainting  in  his 
carriage;  to  so  much  energy  and  to  so  much  power  of 
creation  these  episodes  were  an  awful  introduction  of  death. 

It  was  upon  the  i  yth  of  November  that  he  reached  the 
walls  wherein  he  was  Superior;  six  weeks  later,  on  the 
second  day  after  Christmas,  he  died. 

Were  I  to  describe  that  scene  to  which  he  called  the 
monks,  all  men  of  his  own  birth  and  training,  were  I  to 
dwell  upon  the  appearance  and  the  charafter  of  the  oldest 
and  the  wisest,  who  was  also  the  most  famous  there,  I  should 
extend  this  essay  beyond  its  true  limit,  as  I  should  also  do 
were  I  to  write  down,  even  briefly,  the  account  of  his  just, 
resigned,  and  holy  death.  It  must  suffice  that  I  transcribe 
the  chief  of  his  last  deeds;  I  mean,  that  declaration  wherein 
he  made  his  last  profession  of  faith. 

The  old  monk  had  said  to  him:  "  In  what  resolution  do 
you  die  ?  " 

He  answered,  somewhat  angrily:  ^*In  what  did  you 
think?  In  the  religion  which  was  my  father's  and  his 
father's,  and  his  father's  and  his  father's  before  him — for 
I  am  of  that  kind." 

Then  he  called  all  the  community  round  him,  as  though 
the  monastic  simplicity  had  returned  (so  vital  is  the  Faith, 
so  simple  its  primal  energies),  and  as  though  he  had  been 
the  true  prior  of  some  early  and  fervent  house,  he  told 
them   these   things  which  I   will  faithfully  translate  on 

122 


RONSARD. 

account  of  their  beauty.  They  are  printed  here,  I  think,  for 
the  first  time  in  English,  and  must  stand  for  the  end  of 
this  essay: 

He  said:  "That  he  had  sinned  Hke  other  men,  and, 
perhaps,  more  than  most;  that  his  senses  had  led  him  away 
by  their  charm,  and  that  he  had  not  repressed  or  constrained 
them  as  he  should;  but  none  the  less,  he  had  always  held 
that  Faith  which  the  men  of  his  hne  had  left  him,  he  had 
always  clasped  close  the  Creed  and  the  unity  of  the  Catholic 
Church;  that,  in  fine,  he  had  laid  a  sure  foundation,  but 
he  had  built  thereon  with  wood,  with  hay,  with  straw.  As 
for  that  foundation,  he  was  sure  it  would  stand;  as  for  the 
light  and  worthless  things  he  had  built  upon  it  he  had  trust 
in  the  mercy  of  the  Saviour  that  they  would  be  burnt  in 
the  fire  of  His  love.  And  now  he  begged  them  all  to 
believe  hard,  as  he  had  believed;  but  not  to  live  as  he  had 
lived;  they  must  understand  that  he  had  never  attempted 
or  plotted  against  the  life  or  goods  of  another,  nor  ever 
against  any  man's  honour,  but,  after  all,  there  was  nothing 
therein  wherewith  to  glorify  one's  self  before  God."  When 
he  had  wept  a  little,  he  continued,  saying,  *'  that  the  world 
was  a  ceaseless  turmoil  and  torment,  and  shipwreck  after 
shipwreck  all  the  while,  and  a  whirlpool  of  sins,  and  tears 
and  pain,  and  that  to  all  these  misfortunes  there  was  but 
one  port,  and  this  port  was  Death.  But,  as  for  him,  he 
carried  with  him  into  that  port  no  desire  and  no  regret  for 
life.  That  he  had  tried  every  one  of  its  pretended  joys,  that 
he  had  left  nothing  undone  which  could  give  him  the  least 

123 


RONSARD. 

shadow  of  pleasure  or  content,  but  that  at  the  end  he  had 
found  everywhere  the  oracle  ofWisdom,  vanity  of  vanities." 

He  ended  with  this  magnificent  thing,  which  is,  perhaps, 
the  last  his  human  power  conceived,  and  I  will  put  it  down 
in  his  own  words : — 

"  Of  all  those  vanities,  the  loveliest  and  most  praise- 
worthy is  glory — fame.  No  one  of  my  time  has  been  so 
filled  with  it  as  I;  I  have  lived  in  it,  and  loved  and  tri- 
umphed in  it  through  time  past,  and  now  I  leave  it  to  my 
country  to  garner  and  possess  it  after  I  shall  die.  So  do  I 
go  away  from  my  own  place  as  satiated  with  the  glory  of 
this  world  as  I  am  hungry  and  all  longing  for  that  of  God." 


124 


DIALOGUE  WITH  THE  NINE  SISTERS. 


DIALOGUE  WITH  THE  NINE  SISTERS. 

This  is  a  little  Amaboean  thing  not  very  well  known  but 
very  Horatian  and  worth  setting  down  here  because  it  is 
in  the  manner  of  so  much  that  he  wrote. 

Its  manner  is  admirable.  Its  gentleness,  persistency  and 
increase — are  like  those  of  his  own  small  river  the  Loir. 
Its  last  stanza  from  the  middle  of  the  first  line  "Ceux  dont 
la  fantaisie''  to  the  end,  should,  I  think  be  famous;  but 
an  English  reader  can  hardly  forgive  such  an  introduAion 
as  "  Voila  sagement  dit"  to  so  noble  a  finale. 


127 


DIALOGUE  WITH  THE  NINE  SISTERS. 

Ronsard.  Pour  avoir  trop  aime  vostre  bande  inegale^ 
Muses^  qui  defie-z,  {ce  dites  vous)  le  temps^ 
y^ay  les  yeux  tout  battus^  la  face  tout e  pas le^ 
Le  Chef  grison  et  chauve^  et  je  n'ay  que  trente  arts. 

Muses.  Au  nocher  qui  sans  cesse  erre  sur  la  marine 

Le  teint  noir  appartient;  le  soldat  n^est  point  beau 
Sans  estre  tout  poudreux;  qui  courbe  la  poitrine 
Sur  nos  livres,  est  laid  s^il  ria  pasle  la  peau. 

Ronsard.   Mais  quelle  recompense  aurois-je  de  tant  suivre 
Vos  danses  nuiSf  et  jour^  un  laurier  sur  le  front? 
Et  cependant  les  ans  aux  quels  je  deusse  vivre 
En  plaisirs  et  en  jeux  comme  poudre  s^en  vont. 

Muses.   Vous  aureZj  en  vivant^  une  fameuse  gloire^ 

Puis^  quand  vous  sere%  mort^  votre  nom  feurira 
Vage^  de  siecle  en  siecle,  aura  de  vous  memoire; 
Vostre  corps  seulement  au  tombeau  pourrira. 

Ronsard.   O  le  gentil  loyerl  ^ue  sert  au  viel  Homere^ 

Ores  qu'il  n^est  plus  rien^  sous  la  tombe^  la~bas^ 
Et  qu'il  n'a  plus  ny  chef  ny  bras.,  ny  jambe  en  tier  e 
Si  son  renomfieurist^  ou  s^il  nefeurist  pas! 

129  K 


DIALOGUE  WITH  THE  NINE  SISTERS. 

Muses.   Fous  estes  abuse.    Le  corps  dessous  la  lame 

Pourry  ne  sent  plus  rien^  aussy  ne  luy  en  chaut. 
Mais  un  tel  accident  rC arrive  point  a  fame^ 
^ui  sans  matiere  vist  immortelle  la  haut. 

Jlonsard.  Bien!  Je  vous  suyvray  done  d'une  face  plaisante^ 
Dusse-je  trespasser  de  Pestude  vaincu^ 
Et  ne  fust-ce  qu'a  fin  que  la  race  suyvante 
Ne  me  reproche  point  qu'oysiffaye  vescu. 

Muses.  Fela  saigement  dit^  Ceux  dont  la  fantaisie 
Sera  religieuse  et  devote  envers  Dieu 
Tousjours  acheveront  quelque  grand  poesie^ 
Et  dessus  leur  renom  la  Parque  n'aura  lieu. 


130 


THE  EPITAPH  ON  RABELAIS. 


THE  EPITAPH  ON  RABELAIS. 

Seven  years  after  Rabelais  died,  Ronsard  wrote  this  off- 
hand. I  give  it,  not  for  its  value,  but  because  it  connedls 
these  two  great  names.  The  man  who  wrote  it  had  seen 
that  large  and  honorable  mouth  worshipping  wine:  he  had 
reverenced  that  head  of  laughter  which  has  correded  all 
our  philosophy".  It  would  be  a  shame  to  pass  such  a  name 
as  Ronsard's  signed  to  an  epitaph  on  such  a  work  as  that 
of  Rabelais,  poetry  or  no  poetry. 

Ronsard  also  from  a  tower  at  Meudon  used  to  creep  out 
at  night  and  drink  with  that  fellow-priest,  vicar  of  the 
Parish,  Rabelais :  a  greater  man  than  he. 

By  a  memory  separate  from  the  rest  of  his  verse,  Ronsard 
was  moved  to  write  this  Rabelaisian  thing.  For  he  had 
seen  him  "  full  length  upon  the  grass  and  singing  so." 

There  is  no  need  of  notes,  for  these  great  names  of 
Gargantua,  Panurge  and  Friar  John  are  household  to  every 
honest  man. 


133 


THE  EPITAPH  ON  RABELAIS. 

Si  d^un  mort  qui  pourri  repose 

Nature  engendre  quelque  chose^ 

Et  si  la  generation 

Se  fai£t  de  la  corruption^ 

XJne  vigne  prendra  naissance 

Du  bon  Rabelais  qui  boivoit 

Tous jours  ce  pendant  qu'il  vivoit ; 

It  *  *  *  * 

Demi  me  se  troussoit  les  bras 
Et  se  couchoit  tout  plat  a  has 
Sur  la  jonchee  entre  les  tasses 
Et  parmy  les  escuelles  grasses 

»  *  *  *  * 

II  chantait  la  grande  massue 
Et  la  jument  de  Gargantue^ 
Le  grand  Panurge  et  le  ja'is 
Des  papimanes  ebahisy 
Leurs  loix^  leurs  fafons  et  demeures 
Et  Frere  Jean  des  Antonneures. 
Et  d'Espisteme  les  combas. 
Mais  la  Mort  qui  ne  boivoit  pas 
Tira  le  beuveur  de  ce  monde 
Et  ores  le  fait  boire  de  Vonde 
Du  large  fieuve  d^ Acheron. 


135 


''MIGNONNE  ALLONS  VOIR  SI  LA  ROSE." 

{The  i-jth  Ode  of  the  First  Book.) 


"MIGNONNE  ALLONS  VOIR  SI  LA  ROSE." 

*'  In  these  eighteen  lines,"  says  very  modernly  a  principal 
critic,  "  lies  Ronsard's  fame  more  surely  than  in  all  the  re- 
maining mass  of  his  works."  He  condemns  by  implication 
Ronsard's  wide  waste  of  power;  but  the  few  other  poems 
that  I  have  here  had  room  to  print,  should  make  the  reader 
careful  of  such  judgements.  It  is  true  that  in  the  great 
hoard  which  Ronsard  left  his  people  there  are  separate  and 
particular  jewels  set  in  the  copper  and  the  gold,  but  the 
jewels  are  very  numerous:  indeed  it  was  almost  impossible 
to  choose  so  few  as  I  have  printed  here. 

If  it  be  asked  why  this  should  have  become  the  most 
famous,  no  answer  can  be  given  save  the  "  flavour  of  lan- 
guage." It  is  the  perfection  of  his  tongue.  Its  rhythm 
reaches  the  exad  limit  of  change  which  a  simple  metre  will 
tolerate:  where  it  saddens,  a  lengthy  hesitation  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  seventh  line  introduces  a  new  cadence,  a  lengthy 
lingering  upon  the  last  syllables  of  the  tenth,  eleventh  and 
twelfth  closes  a  grave  complaint.  So,  also  by  an  effedl  of 
quantities,  the  last  six  lines  rise  out  of  melancholy  into  their 
proper  charader  of  appeal  and  vivacity:  an  exhortation. 

Certainly  those  who  are  so  unfamiliar  with  French  poetry 

139 


"MIGNONNE  ALLONS  VOIR  SI  LA  ROSE." 

as  not  to  know  that  its  whole  power  depends  upon  an  ex- 
treme subtlety  of  rhythm,  may  find  here  the  principal  ex- 
ample of  the  quality  they  have  missed.  Something  much 
less  weighty  than  the  stress  of  English  lines,  a  just  per- 
ceptible difference  between  nearly  equal  syllables,  marks  the 
excellent  from  the  intolerable  in  French  prosody:  and  to 
feel  this  truth  in  the  eighteen  lines  that  follow  it  is  necessary 
to  read  them  virtually  in  the  modern  manner — for  the  "s" 
in  "  vespree  "  or  "  vostre  "  were  pedantries  in  the  sixteenth 
century — but  one  must  give  the  mute  *'  e's  "  throughout 
as  full  a  value  as  they  have  in  singing.  Indeed,  reading 
this  poem,  one  sees  how  it  must  have  been  composed  to 
some  good  and  simple  air  in  the  man's  head. 

If  the  limits  of  a  page  permitted  it,  I  would  also  show 
how  worthy  the  thing  was  of  fame  from  its  pure  and  careful 
choice  of  verb — "  Tandis  que  vostre  ?igQ  fleuronne  " — but 
space  prevents  me,  luckily,  for  all  this  is  like  splitting  a 
diamond. 


140 


''MIGNONNE  ALLONS  VOIR  SI  LA  ROSE." 

Mignonne^  allons  voir  si  la  rose 
^ui  ce  matin  avoit  desclose 
Sa  robe  de  pourpre  au  soleil 
A  point  perdu  ceste  ve spree 
Les  plis  de  sa  robe  pourpre e 
Et  son  teint  au  vostre  pareil 

Las !  Voyez  comme  en  peu  d^espace 
Alignonne,  elle  a  dessus  la  place^ 
Las  I   Las!  ses  beaut ez  laisse  cheoir! 
O  vrayment  marastre  nature.^ 
Puis  qu'une  telle  Jieur  ne  dure 
^ue  du  matin  jus  que  s  ausoir! 

Done  si  vous  me  croyez^  Mignonne^ 
Tandis  que  vostre  age  Jieuronne 
En  sa  plus  verte  nouveaute^ 
CuilleZj  Cuillez  vostre  jeunesse: 
Comme  a  ceste  Jieur,  la  veillesse 
Fera  ternir  vostre  beaut'e. 


141 


THE  "SONNETS  FOR  HELENE" 

(The  \2nd  and  ^^rd  Sonnets  of  the  Second  Book.) 


THE  « SONNETS  FOR  HELENE." 

Helen E  was  very  real.  A  young  Maid  of  Honour  to  Cath- 
erine de  Medicis;  Spanish  by  blood,  Italian  by  breeding, 
called  in  France  "  de  Sugeres,"  she  was  the  gravest  and  the 
wisest,  and,  for  those  who  loved  serenity,  the  most  beautiful 
of  that  high  and  brilliant  school. 

The  Sonnets  began  as  a  task;  a  task  the  Queen  had  set 
Ronsard,  with  Helene  for  theme:  they  ended  in  the  last 
strong  love  of  Ronsard's  life.  A  sincere  lover  of  many 
women,  he  had  come  to  the  turn  of  his  age  when  he  saw 
her,  like  a  memory  of  his  own  youth.  He  has  permitted 
to  run  through  this  series,  therefore,  something  of  the 
unique  illusion  which  distance  in  time  or  space  can  lend 
to  the  asped  of  beauty.  An  emotion  so  tenuous  does  not 
appear  in  any  other  part  of  his  work:  here  alone  you  find 
the  chastity  or  weakness  which  made  something  in  his 
mind  come  near  to  the  sadder  Du  Bellay's:  his  soul  is  re- 
gardant all  the  while  as  he  writes :  visions  rise  from  her 
such  as  never  rose  from  Cassandra;  as  this  great  pid:ure  at 
the  opening  of  the  58th  Sonnet  of  the  Second  Book: 

Seule  sans  compagnie  en  une  grande  salle 
Tu  logeois  I'autre  jour  pleine  de  majeste. 

These  "Sonnets  for  Helene  "should  be  common  knowledge : 

145  L 


THE  "SONNETS  FOR  HELENE  " 

they  are  (with  Du  Bellay's)  the  evident  original  upon  which 
the  author  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  modelled  his  work: 
they  are  the  late  and  careful  effort  of  Ronsard's  somewhat 
spendthrift  genius. 

Here  are  two  of  them.  One,  the  second,  most  famous, 
the  other,  the  first,  hardly  known :  both  are  admirable. 

It  is  the  perfedtion  of  their  sound  which  gives  them  their 
peculiar  quality.  The  very  first  lines  lead  off  with  a  com- 
pleted harmony:  it  is  as  thoroughly  a  winter  night  as  that 
in  Shakespeare's  song,  but  it  is  more  solemn  and,  as  it  were, 
more  "  built  of  stone.  .  .  ."  *'  La  Lune  Ocieuse,  tourne  si 
lentement  son  char  tout  a  I'entour,"  is  like  a  sleeping 
statue  of  marble. 

To  this  character,  the  second  adds  a  vivid  interest  of 
•emotion  which  has  given  it  its  special  fame.  Even  the 
populace  have  come  to  hear  of  this  sonnet,  and  it  is  sung  to 
a  lovely  tune.  It  has  also  what  often  leads  to  permanent 
reputation  in  verse,  a  great  simplicity  of  form.  The  Sextet 
is  well  divided  from  the  06tave,  the  climax  is  clearly  under- 
lined. Ronsard  was  often  (to  his  hurt)  too  scholarly  to 
achieve  simplicity:  when,  under  the  clear  influence  of  some 
sharp  passion  or  gaiety  he  did  achieve  it,  then  he  wrote 
the  lines  that  will  always  remain: 

A  fin  qu'a  tout  jamais  de  siecle  en  siecle  vive, 
La  Parfaifte  amiti^  que  Ronsard  la  portait. 


146 


THE  ''SONNETS  FOR  HELENE." 

XLII 

Ces  longues  nui£fs  (Vhyver^  ou  la  Lune  ocieuse 

Tourne  si  lentement  son  char  tout  a  fentour^ 
Ou  le  Coq  si  tardif  nous  annonce  le  jour^ 

Oil  la  nui£f  semble  un  an  a  I'ame  soucieuse: 

Je  fusse  mort  d''ennuy  sans  ta  forme  douteuse 

^ui  vient  par  une  feinte  alleger  mon  amour^ 
Et  faisant  toute  nue  entre  mes  bras  sejour 

Me  pipe  doucetnent  d'' une  joy e  menteuse. 

Vraye  tu  es  farouche,  et  fiere  en  cruaute : 
De  toy  fausse  on  jouyst  en  toute  privaute. 

Pres  ton  mort  je  m^endors,  pres  de  luy  je  repose: 
Rien  ne  nCest  refuse.    Le  bon  sommeil  ainsi 
Abuse  pour  le  faux  mon  amoureux  souci, 

S^ abuser  en  Amour  n\st  pas  mauvaise  chose. 

XLIII 

^uand  vous  serez  bien  vieille^  au  Soir  a  la  chandelle^ 
Assise  aupres  dufeu^  devidant  et  flant^ 
Direx  chantant  mes  verSy  en  vous  esmerveillant^ 

Ronsard  me  celebroit  du  temps  que  festois  belle. 

Lors  vous  naurez  servante  oyant  telle  nouvelle 
Desia  sous  le  labeur  a  demy  sommeillant 
^ui  au  bruit  de  mon  nom  ne  s^aille  resveillant, 

Benissant  vostre  nom  de  louange  immortelle. 

H7 


THE  "SONNETS  FOR  HELENE " 

ye  seray  sous  la  terre  et  fantome  sans  os 

Par  les  ombres  myrteux  je  prendray  rnon  repos. 

Vous  serez  au  foyer  une  veille  accroupie^ 
Regrettant  mon  amour  et  vostre  fier  desdain. 
Fivez^  si  men  croyez;   n^attendez  a  demain. 

Cueillez  des  aujourdhuy  les  roses  de  la  vie. 


148 


DU  BELLAY 


JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY. 

In  Du  Bellay  the  literary  Renaissance,  French  but  trans- 
figured by  Italy,  middle-north  of  the  plains  but  looking 
southward  to  the  Mediterranean,  came  to  one  soul  and 
concentrated  upon  it,  as  the  plastic  expression  of  the  same 
influence  concentrated  in  Goujon.  Very  central  in  time, 
half  soldier,  half  priest,  all  student;  traveller  and  almost 
adventurer,  a  pilgrim  throughout  of  the  Idea,  everything 
about  him  is  symbolic  of  the  generation  he  adorned. 

In  its  vigour,  at  least,  the  Renaissance  was  a  glorious 
youth — he,  Du  Bellay,  died  at  thirty-five.  Its  leap  and 
soaring  were  taken  from  the  firm  platform  of  strong 
scholarship — he  was  a  scholar  beyond  the  rest.  It  fixed 
special  forms — he  the  French  sonnet.  It  felt  the  lives  of  all 
things  running  through  it  as  a  young  man  feels  them  in  the 
spring  woods — he  gathered  in  the  cup  of  his  verse,  and  retains 
for  us,  the  nerve  of  all  that  life  which  is  still  exultant  in  the 
forest  beyond  his  river.  His  breeding,  his  high  name,  his 
leisured  poverty,  his  passionate  friendship,  his  looking  for- 
ward always  to  a  new  thing,  a  creation — all  this,  was  the 
Renaissance  in  person. 

Moreover,  the  Renaissance  had  in  France  its  seat  where, 

151 


JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY. 

between  rolling  lands  whose  woods  are  the  walls  of  gardens, 
the  broad  and  shallow  inland  Loire  runs  from  Orleans,  past 
Blois  and  Tours  and  Saumur,  and  Ancenis,  until  near 
Nantes  at  last  it  feels  the  tide  :  salt  and  adventures  and  the 
barbaric  sea.  This  varied  sheltered  land  of  aged  vineyards 
and  great  wealth  has,  for  the  French  Renaissance,  the  one 
special  quality  of  beginnings  and  Edens,  namely,  that  it 
preserves  on  to  a  later  time  the  outward  evidences  of  an 
original  perfedion.  This  place,  the  nest  or  seed-plot  of  the 
new  civilisation,  still  shows  its  castles — Blois,  Amboise, 
Cl.^jmbord.  Here  Leonardo  died,  Rabelais,  Ronsard  him- 
self was  born.  Here  the  kings  of  the  Change  built  in  their 
fantastic  pride,  and  founded  a  France  that  still  endures. 
It  is  as  truly  the  soil  of  the  modern  thing  as  are  the 
provinces  north  of  it  (the  Isle  de  France,  Normandy, 
Picardy  and  Champagne),  the  soil  of  the  earlier  mediaeval 
flower,  and  of  the  Gothic  which  they  preserve  unique  to 
our  own  time. 

Now,  of  this  distridl,  Du  Bellay  was  more  than  a  native; 
he  was  part  of  it;  he  pined  away  from  it;  he  regretted,  as 
no  other  man  of  the  time  regretted,  his  father's  land: 
Anjou  and  the  fields  of  home.  He  may  be  said,  with  some 
exaggeration,  to  have  died  in  the  misfortune  of  his  separation 
from  the  security  and  sober  tradition  of  his  own  walls. 
That  great  early  experience  of  his,  which  I  have  already 
written  down — his  meeting  with  Ronsard — had  come  to 
him  not  far  from  his  own  hill,  south  of  the  great  river. 
His  name,  unlike  Ronsard's,  recalled  the  gentry  of  that 

152 


JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY. 

countryside  up  to  and  beyond  the  beginning  of  Its  history; 
alone  of  the  Pleiade  he  translated  the  valley  of  the  Loire, 
its  depth,  its  delicacy,  its  rich  and  subtle  loneliness. 

Again,  the  Renaissance  lived  in  France  an  inspired  and 
an  exalted  life,  so  that  there  necessarily  ran  through  it  a 
fore-knowledge  of  sudden  ending.  This  tragedy  repeated 
itself  in  the  career  of  Du  Bellay. 

His  name  was  famous.  The  three  Du  Bellays,  the 
councillor,  the  soldier,  the  great  Cardinal,  were  in  the  first 
rank  of  the  early  sixteenth  century.  Rabelais  had  loved 
them.  Francis  I.  had  leaned  upon  and  rewarded  their 
service.  His  father  (their  first-cousin  and  Governor  of 
Brest)  was  a  poor  noble,  who,  as  is  the  fashion  of  nobles, 
had  married  a  wife  to  consolidate  a  fortune.  This  wife,  the 
mother  of  Joachim,  was  heiress  to  the  house  of  Tourmeliere 
in  Lire,  just  by  the  Loire  on  the  brow  that  looks  north- 
ward over  the  river  to  the  bridge  and  Ancenis,  In  this 
house  he  was  born.  On  his  parents'  early  death  he  inherited 
the  place,  not  to  enjoy  it,  but  to  wander.  An  early  illness 
had  made  him  forsake  the  career  of  arms  for  that  of  the 
Church ;  but  Orders  were  hardly  so  much  as  a  cloak  to  him ; 
it  is  difficult  to  remember,  as  one  reads  the  few  evidences 
of  his  life,  that  he  wore  the  cloth  at  all :  in  his  verse  all  trace 
of  it  is  entirely  absent.  He  lived  still  in  that  lineage  which 
the  reform  had  not  touched.  The  passionate  defence  of  the 
Catholic  Faith,  the  Assault  converging  on  the  church 
throughout  Europe,  the  raising  of  the  Siege,  the  Triumph 
which  developed,  at  last,  on  the  political  side  the  League, 

153 


JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY. 

and  on  the  literary  the  final  rigidity  of  Malherbe,  the  noise 
of  all  these  had  not  reached  his  circle,  kind,  or  family. 

Of  that  family  the  Cardinal  seems  to  have  regarded  him 
as  the  principal  survivor.  He  had  determined  to  make  of 
the  young  poet  the  heir  of  its  glory.  It  came  to  nothing. 
He  accompanied  his  relative  to  Rome:  but  the  diplomacy 
of  the  mission  ill-suited  him.  Of  the  Royal  ladies  at  court 
who  befriended  him,  the  marriage  of  one,  the  death  of 
another,  increased  his  insecurity.  He  had  inherited,  to  his 
bane,  another  estate — Conor — from  his  elder  brother.  It 
w^as  encumbered,  the  cause  litigious,  and  he  had  inherited 
with  it  the  tutelage  of  a  sickly  child.  He  never  shook  off 
the  burden.  A  tragic  error  marked  his  end.  He  died, 
certainly  broken-hearted,  just  when  his  powerful  cousin, 
by  a  conversion  perhaps  unknown  to  the  poet  himself,  had 
rejeded  calumnies,  and  had  determined  to  resign  to  him 
the  great  Archbishopric  of  Bordeaux. 

Eustache  Du  Bellay,  yet  another  cousin,  was  Bishop  of 
Paris.  He  had  made  Joachim,  on  his  return  from  Rome, 
a  Canon  of  Notre  Dame,  and  in  that  capacity  the  poet, 
dying  in  Paris,  was  buried  in  the  cathedral.  The  adlion  of 
the  Chapter  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when  they  replaced 
the  old  tombstones  by  the  present  pavement,  has  destroyed 
the  record  of  his  grave;  I  believe  it  to  lie  in  the  southern 
part  of  the  ambulatory. 

In  this  abrupt  descent,  following  upon  so  fierce  an  adlivity 
of  thought,  he  prefigured,!  say,  the  close  of  the  Renaissance 
as  his  genius  typified  its  living  spirit;  for  all  the  while,  as 

15+ 


JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY. 

you  read  him,  you  see  the  cloud  about  his  head,  and  the 
profound,  though  proud  and  constant,  sadness  of  his  eyes. 

This,  also,  was  pure  Renaissance  in  him,  that  the  fields 
in  which  he  wandered,  and  which  he  loved  to  sing — a  man 
of  elegies — were  dominated  by  the  awful  ruins  of  Rome. 
These  it  was  that  lent  him  his  gravity,  and  perhaps  op- 
pressed him.  He  sang  them  also  with  a  comprehension  of 
the  superb. 

He  was  second  to  Ronsard.  Though  he  was  the  sharp 
voice  of  the  Pleiade,  though  it  was  he  who  published  their 
famous  manifesto,  though  his  scholarship  was  harder, 
though  his  energy  could  run  more  fiercely  to  one  point  and 
shine  there  more  brilliantly  in  one  small  climax;  yet  he  was 
second.  He  himself  thought  it  of  himself,  and  called  him- 
self a  disciple.  All  up  and  down  his  works  you  find  an 
astonished  admiration  direded  towards  his  greater  friend — 

.     .     .     Un  amy  que  les  Dieux 
Guydent  si  hault  au  sender  des  plus  vieux. 

Or  again — 

Divin  Ronsard  qui  de  Tare  a  sept  cordes 
Tiras  premier  au  but  de  la  memoire 
Les  traifts  ailez  de  la  Fran^oise  gloire. 

Everywhere  it  is  his  friend  rather  than  he  that  has  touched 
the  mark  of  the  gods  and  called  up  from  the  tomb  the  ghost 
of  Rome  which  all  that  company  worshipped. 

I  say  he  saw  himself  that  he  was  second.  Old  Durat 
saw  it  clearly  in  that  little  college  of  poets  where  he  taught 

155 


JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY. 

the  unteachable  thing:  De  Baif,  Belleau — all  the  comrades 
would  have  taken  it  for  granted,  Ronsard  led  and  was 
chief,  because  he  had  the  firm  largeness,  the  laughter  and 
the  permanence  which  are  the  marks  of  those  who  determine 
the  fortunes  of  the  French  in  letters  or  in  arms.  Ronsard 
made.  His  verses,  in  their  great  mass  and  unfailing  level, 
were  but  one  example  of  the  power  that  could  produce  a 
school,  call  up  a  general  enthusiasm,  and  for  forty  years 
govern  the  taste  of  his  country.  There  was  in  him  some- 
thing public,  in  Du  Bellay  something  domestic  and  attached, 
as  in  the  relations  of  a  king  and  of  a  herald.  Or  again,  the 
one  was  like  an  ordered  wood  with  a  rich  open  plain  about 
it,  the  other  was  like  a  garden.  Ronsard  was  the  Beauce; 
Du  Bellay  was  Anjou.  It  might  be  said  of  the  first  that 
he  stood  a  symbol  for  the  wheat  and  corn-land  of  the 
Vendomois,  and  of  the  second,  that  he  recalled  that  subtle 
wine  of  the  southern  Loire  to  which  Chinon  gives  the  most 
famous  label, 

Du  Bellay  was  second:  nevertheless,  when  he  is  well 
known  in  this  country  it  will  be  difficult  to  convince  English- 
men of  that  truth.  There  is  in  his  mind  a  facet  which  ex- 
adlly  corresponds  to  a  facet  of  our  own,  and  that  is  a  quality 
so  rare  in  the  French  classics  that  it  will  necessarily  attradl 
English  readers  to  him:  for,  of  all  people,  we  nowadays 
criticise  most  in  letters  by  the  standard  of  our  immediate 
emotions,  and  least  by  what  was  once  called  "  reason,"  He 
was  capable  of  that  which  will  alwaysbe  called  ''poignancy," 
and  what  for  the  moment  we  call  'Mepth,"    He  was  less 

156 


JOACHIM  DU  BELLAY. 

careful  than  are  the  majority  of  his  countrymen  to  make 
letters  an  art,  and  so  to  treat  his  own  personality  as  a  thing 
apart.  On  the  contrary,  he  allowed  that  personality  to 
pierce  through  continually,  so  that  simplicity,  diredlness,  a 
certain  individual  note  as  of  a  human  being  complaining — 
a  note  we  know  very  well  in  our  own  literature — is  per- 
petually discovered. 

Thus,  in  a  spirit  which  all  Englishmen  will  understand, 
a  lightness  almost  sardonic  lay  above  the  depths  of  his 
grief,  and  the  tenderness  which  attached  to  his  home  played 
around  the  things  that  go  with  quietude — his  books  and 
animals.  1  shall  quote  hereafter  the  epitaphs  he  wrote  for 
his  dog  and  for  his  cat,  this  singer  of  sublime  and  ruined 
things. 

Of  the  dog  who — 

allait  tousjours  suivant 
Quelquefois  allait  devant. 
Faisant  ne  s^ay  quelle  feste 
D'un  gai  branslement  de  teste." 

and  of  whom  he  says,  in  a  pretty  imitation  of  Catullus, 
that  he — 

,     .     .     maintenant  pourmeine 
Parmy  cette  ombreuse  plaine 
Dont  nul  ne  revient  vers  nous. 

Or  of  the  cat  who  was — 

par  aventure 
Le  plus  Bel  oeuvre  que  nature 
Fit  one  en  matiere  de  chats. 


JOACHrM  DU  BELLAY. 

All  that  delicate  side  of  him  we  understand  very  well. 

Nor  is  it  to  modern  Englishmen  alone  that  he  will  appeal. 
He  powerfully  affedted,  it  may  be  presumed,  the  English 
Renaissance  which  succeeded  him.  Spenser — thirty  years 
after  his  death — was  moved  to  the  translation  of  his  famous 
lament  for  Rome,  and  no  one  can  read  the  sonnets  to  which 
he  gave  their  final  form  without  catching  the  same  note  in 
the  great  English  cycle  of  the  generation  after  him — the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  opening  of  the  seventeenth 
centuries. 

But  his  verse  read  will  prove  all  this  and  suggest  much 
more. 


158 


EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  "ANTIQUITEZ 
DE  ROME." 


THE  «  ANTIQUITEZ  DE  ROME." 

Of  the  high  series  which  Rome  called  forth  from  Du 
Bellay  during  that  bitter  diplomatic  exile  of  his,  I  have 
chosen  these  three  sonnets,  because  they  seem  best  to  ex- 
press the  majesty  and  gloom  which  haunted  him.  It  is 
difficult  to  choose  in  a  chain  of  cadences  so  equal  and  so 
exalted,  but  perhaps  the  last, "  Telle  que  dans  son  char  la 
Berecynthienne  "  is  the  most  marvellous.  The  vision  alone 
of  Rome  like  the  mother  of  the  Gods  in  her  car  would  have 
made  the  sonnet  immortal.  He  adds  to  the  mere  pidlure  a 
noise  of  words  that  is  like  thunder  in  the  hills  far  off  on 
summer  afternoons:  the  words  roll  and  crest  themselves 
and  follow  rumbling  to  the  end:  he  could  not  have  known 
as  he  wrote  it  how  great  a  thing  he  was  writing.  It  has 
all  the  charadler  of  verse  that  increases  with  time  and  seems 
superior  to  its  own  author's  intention. 


i6i 


THE  ''ANTI^ITEZ  DE  ROMEr 

III. 

Nouveau  venu  qui  cherches  Rome  en  Rome^ 
Et  rien  de  Rome  en  Rome  n'apper^ois^ 
Ces  vieux  palais,  ces  vieux  arcz  que  tu  vols 

Et  ces  vieux  Murs,  c'est  ce  que  Rome  on  nomme. 

Voy  quel  orgueil,  quelle  ruine^  et  comme 
Celle  que  mist  le  monde  sous  ses  loix 
Pour  donter  touty  se  donta  quelquefois^ 

Et  devint  proye  au  temps,  qui  tout  consomme. 

Rome  de  Rome  est  le  seul  monument^ 
Et  Rome  Rome  a  vaincu  seulement. 

Le  Tybre  seul,  qui  vers  la  mer  s'enfuit, 
Reste  de  Rome.    O  mondaine  inconstance ! 

Ce  qui  est  ferme,  est  par  le  temps  destruit^ 
Et  se  qui  fuit,  au  temps  fait  resistance. 

IV. 

Celle  qui  de  son  chef  les  est oi lies  passoit, 

Et  d^un  pied  sur  Thetis,  l* autre  dessous  ? Aurore 
D'une  main  sur  le  Scythe,  et  V autre  sur  le  More, 

De  la  terre,  et  du  Ciel,  la  rondeur  compassoit, 

Juppiter  ayant  peur,  si  plus  elle  croissoit 

^ue  Nrgueil  des  Geans  se  relevast  encore, 
Uaccahla  sous  ces  monts,  ces  sept  monts  qui  font  ore 

Tumbeaux  de  la  grandeur  qui  le  ciel  menassoit. 

163 


THE  "ANTIQUITEZ  DE  ROME." 

//  luy  meist  sur  le  chef  la  croppe  Saturnale 
Puis  dessus  I'estomac  assist  le  quirinale 

Sur  le  ventre  il  planta  P antique  Palatin^ 

Mist  sur  la  dextre  main  la  hauteur  Celienne^ 
Sur  la  senestre  assist  Peschine  Exquilienne 

Fiminal  sur  un  pied:  sur  V autre  U Aventin. 


VI. 

Telle  que  dans  son  Char  la  Berecynthienne 
Couronnee  de  tours ^  et  joyeuse  d' avoir 
Enfante  tant  de  Dieuxy  telle  se  faisoit  voir 

En  ses  Jours  plus  heureux  ceste  ville  ancienne : 

Ceste  ville  qui  fust  plus  que  la  Phrygienne 

Foisonnante  en  enfants  et  de  qui  le  pouvoir 
Fust  le  pouvoir  du  Monde^  et  ne  se  peult  revoir 

Pareille  d  sa  grandeur^  grandeur  si  non  la  sienne. 

Rome  seule  pouvoit  a  Rome  ressembler^ 

Rome  seule  pouvoit  Rome  f aire  trembler : 
Aussi  n'avoit  permis  Pordonnance  fatale^ 

^u^ autre  pouvoir  humain,  tant  fust  audacieuXy 
Se  vantast  d'egaler  celle  qui  fust  egale 

Sa  puissance  a  la  terre^  et  son  courage  au  cieux. 


164 


THE  SONNET  OF  EXILE. 


THE  SONNET  OF  EXILE. 

This  sonnet  dates  from  the  same  period  at  Rome,  or  pos- 
sibly from  his  return.  It  has  a  different  note.  It  is  the 
most  personal  and  passionate  of  all  his  writings,  in  which 
so  much  was  inspired  by  personal  regret.  On  this  account 
it  has  a  special  literary  interest  as  the  most  modern  thing 
of  the  Renaissance.  It  would  be  far  less  surprising  to  find 
this  written  by  one  of  the  young  republicans  under  the 
Second  Empire  (for  instance)  than  to  find  a  couplet  of 
Malherbe's  straying  into  our  time. 


167 


THE  SONNET  OF  EXILE. 

France^  Mere  des  arts^  des  armes,  et  des  loix^ 

Tu  rn'as  nourry  long  temps  du  laiSi  de  ta  mamelle , 
Ores^  comme  un  aigneau  qui  sa  nourisse  appelle^ 

ye  remplis  de  ton  nom  les  antres  et  les  hois. 

Si  tu  rn'as  pour  enfant  advoue  quelquefois 

^ue  ne  me  respons-tu  maintenant^  o  cruelle? 
France^  France^  respons  a  ma  triste  querelle : 

Mais  nulj  sinon  Echo,  ne  respond  a  ma  voix. 

Entre  les  loups  cruels  ferre  par  my  la  plaine 
"Je  sens  venir  Vhyver,  de  qui  lafroide  haleine 

D*une  tremblante  horreur  fait  herisser  ma  peau. 
Las!  tes  autres  agneaux  riont  faute  de  pasture y 
lis  ne  craignent  le  loup,  le  vent,  ny  la  froidure; 

Si  ne  suis-je  pourtant  le  pire  du  troppeau. 


169 


THE  SONNET  ^'HEUREUX  QUI  COMME 
ULYSSE." 

{The  list  of  the  "  Regrets."') 


THE  SONNET  "HEUREUX  QUI  COMME 
ULYSSE." 

It  was  of  a  large  gray  house,  moated,  a  town  beside  it,  yet 
not  far  from  woods  and  standing  in  rough  fields,  pure  An- 
gevin, Tourmeliere,  the  Manor  house  of  Lire,  his  home, 
that  Du  Bellay  wrote  this,  the  most  dignified  and  perhaps 
the  last  of  his  sonnets.  The  sadness  which  is  the  permanent, 
though  sometimes  the  unrecognized,  moderator  of  his  race, 
which  had  pierced  through  in  his  latter  misfortunes,  and 
which  had  tortured  him  to  the  cry  that  has  been  printed 
on  the  preceding  page,  here  reached  a  final  and  a  most 
noble  form:  something  much  higher  than  melancholy,  and 
more  majestic  than  regret.  He  turned  to  his  estate,  the 
mould  of  his  family,  a  roof,  the  inheritance  of  which  had 
formed  his  original  burden  and  had  at  last  crushed  him; 
but  he  turned  to  it  with  affedion.  If  one  may  use  so  small 
a  word  in  connedlion  with  a  great  poet,  the  gentleman  in 
him  remembered  an  ancestral  repose. 

There  is  very  much  in  the  Sonnet  to  mark  that  develop- 
ment of  French  verse  in  which  Du  Bellay  played  so  great 
a  part.  The  inversion  of  the  sentence,  a  trick  which  gives 
a  special  charader  to  all  the  later  formal  drama  is  promi- 
nent: the  convention  of  contrast,  the  purely  classical  allu- 
sion, are  mixed  with  a  spirit  that  is  still  spontaneous  and 

173 


THE  SONNET  "HEUREUX  QUI  COMME  ULYSSE" 

even  naif.  But  every  word  is  chosen,  and  it  is  especially 
noteworthy  to  discover  so  early  that  restraint  in  epithet 
which  is  the  charm  but  also  the  danger  of  what  French  style 
has  since  become.  Of  this  there  are  two  examples  here: 
the  eleventh  line  and  the  last,  which  rhymes  with  it.  To 
contrast  slate  with  marble  would  be  impossible  prose  save 
for  the  exadl  adjedlive  "^»(?,"  which  puts  you  at  once  into 
Anjou.  The  last  line,  in  spite  of  its  exquisite  murmur, 
would  be  grotesque  if  the  "  air  marin  "  were  meant  for  the 
sea-shore.  Coming  as  it  does  after  the  suggestions  of  the 
OAave  it  gives  you  suddenly  sea-faring:  Ulysses,  Jason, 
his  own  voyages,  the  long  way  to  Rome,  which  he  knew; 
and  in  the  "  douceur  Angevine  "  you  have  for  a  final  foil  to 
such  wanderings,  not  only  in  the  meaning  of  the  words,  but 
in  their  very  sound,  the  hearth  and  the  return. 


174 


THE   SONNET  '' HEUREUX  ^I  COMME  ULTSSE'' 

Heureux  qui  comme  Ulysse  a  fait  un  beau  voyage 
Ou  comme  cestuy  la  qui  conquit  la  Toison 
Et  puis  est  retourne^  plein  d^  us  age  et  raison, 

Vivre  entre  ses  parents  le  reste  de  son  age  ! 

^uand  revoirai-je^  helas^  de  mon  petit  village 
Fumer  la  cheminee:  et  en  quelle  saison 
Revoirai-je  le  clos  de  ma  pauvre  maison, 

^ui  nUest  une  province^  et  beaucoup  d^avantage? 

Plus  me  plaist  le  sejour  qu'ont  basty  mes  aieux 
^ue  des  palais  Romains  le  front  audacieux: 

Plus  que  le  mahre  dur  me  plaist  V ardoise  fine^ 

Plus  mon  Loyre  gaulois  que  le  Tybre  Latin^ 
Plus  mon  petit  Lyre  que  le  Mont  Palatin^ 

Et  plus  que  Pair  marin  la  doulceur  Angevine. 


175 


THE     WINNOWER'S     HYMN     TO     THE 

WINDS. 


\ir 


THE  WINNOWER'S  HYMN  TO  THE  WINDS. 

This  delicate  air  of  summer,  this  reminiscence  and  comfort 
for  men  who  no  longer  see  the  Eure  or  the  Bievre  or  any 
of  their  northern  rivers,  this  very  mirror  of  Du  Bellay's 
own  exiled  mind — was  written  for  an  "  exercise."  It  is  a 
translation — a  translation  from  the  Latin  of  a  forgotten 
Venetian  scholar. 

When  a  man  finds  in  reading  such  a  startling  truth,  it 
convinces  him  that  letters  have  a  power  of  their  own  and 
are  greater  of  themselves  than  the  things  which  inspired 
them  :  for  when,  to  show  his  skill  in  rendering  Latin  into 
French  verse,  Du  Bellay  had  written  this  down,  he  created 
and  fixed  for  everybody  who  was  to  read  him  from  then 
onwards  the  permanent  picture  of  a  field  by  the  side  of  a 
small,  full  river,  with  a  band  of  trees  far  off,  and,  above,  the 
poplar  leaves  that  are  never  still.  It  runs  to  a  kind  of 
happy  croon,  and  has  for  a  few  moments  restored  very 
many  who  have  read  it  to  their  own  place;  and  Corot 
should  have  painted  it. 


179 


THE  WINNOWER'S  HYMN  TO  THE  WINDS, 

A  vous  troppe  legere 
^ui  d^aele  passagere 
Par  le  monde  volez^ 
Et  d'un  sifflant  murmure 
Vomhrageuse  verdure 
Doulcement  esbran/eZj 

y'offre  ces  violettes, 
Ces  lis  et  ces  Jieurettes 
Et  ces  roses  ici, 
Ces  vermeillettes  roses 
Tout  freschement  escloses, 
Et  ces  ceilletz  aussi. 

De  vostre  doulce  haleine 
Eventez  ceste  plaine 
Eventez  ce  sejour^ 

Ce  pendant  que  j'ahanne 

A  mon  hie  que  je  vanne 

A  la  chaleur  du  jour. 


i8i 


THE  FUNERAL  ODES  OF  THE  DOG 
AND  THE  CAT. 


THE  FUNERAL  ODES  OF  THE  DOG 
AND  THE  CAT. 

Here  are  extrads  from  those  two  delightful  and  tender 
things  to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made.  The  epi- 
taphs upon  his  little  dog  and  his  little  cat. 

It  was  a  character  in  this  sad  man  to  make  little,  humble, 
grotesque,  pleasing  images  of  grief;  as  it  were,  little  idols 
of  his  goddess ;  and  he  fashioned  them  with  an  exquisite 
humour  and  affedion.  What  animal  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury lives  so  clearly  as  these  two?  None,  I  think,  except 
some  few  in  the  pidures  of  the  painters  of  the  low  countries. 

I  wish  I  had  space  to  print  both  these  threnodies  in  full, 
but  they  are  somewhat  long,  and  I  must  beg  my  reader  to 
find  them  in  the  printed  works  of  Du  Bellay.  It  is  well 
worth  the  pains  of  looking. 


185 


THE  DOG. 


THE  DOG. 

Dessous  ceste  motte  verte 
De  lis  et  roses  couverte 
Gist  le  petit  Peloton 
De  qui  le  poil  foleton 
Frisoit  d^une  toyson  blanche 
Le  do%^  le  ventre^  et  la  hanche. 


Son  exercice  ordinaire 
Estoit  de  japper  et  braire, 
Courir  en  hault  et  en  bas^ 
Et  faire  cent  mi  lie  esbas^ 
Tous  estranges  et  farouches^ 
Et  n^avoit  guerre  qu^aux  mouscheSy 
^i  luy  faisoient  maint  torment. 
Mais  Peloton  dextrement 
Leur  rendoit  bien  la  pareille: 
Car  se  couchant  sur  Poreille^ 
Finement  il  aguignoit 
^uand  quelqu!une  le  poingnoit: 
Lors  d'une  habile  soupplesse 
Happant  la  mouche  traistresse. 
La  serroit  bien  fort  dedans^ 
Faisant  accorder  ses  dens 

m  *  * 

189 


THE  DOG. 

Peloton  ne  caressoit^ 
Sinon  ceulx  qu'il  cognoissoit^ 
Et  neust  pas  voulu  repaistre 
D'' autre  main  que  de  son  maistre, 
^u^il  alloit  tousjours  suyvant : 
^ue/quefois  marchoit  devant^ 
Faisant  ne  scay  quelle  feste 
U'un  gay  hranlement  de  teste. 


Mon  Dieu^  quel  plaisir  cestoity 
^uand  Peloton  se  grattoit^ 
Faisant  tinier  sa  sonnette 
Avec  sa  teste  folette  ! 
^uel  plaisir  J  quand  Peloton 
Cheminoit  sur  un  baston, 
Ou  coife  d'un  petit  linge^ 
Jssis  comme  un  petit  singe^ 
Se  tenoit  mignardelet, 
D'un  maintien  damoiselet  I 


LaSy  mais  ce  doulx  passetemps 
Ne  nous  dura  pas  long  temps : 
Car  la  mort  ayant  anvie 
Sur  Vayse  de  nostre  vie^ 
Envoya  devers  Pluton 
Nostre  petit  Peloton^ 
^ui  maintenant  se  pourmeine 
Parmi  ceste  umbreuse  plaine, 
Dont  nul  ne  revient  vers  nous. 


190 


THE  CAT 


THE  CAT 

Pourquoy  je  suis  tant  esperdu 
Ce  n^ est  pas  pour  avoir  perdu 
Mes  anneaux^  mon  argent^  ma  hource: 
Et  pourquoy  est  ce  done?  pource 
^ue  fay  perdu  depuis  trots  jours 
Mon  bien,  mon  plaisir,  mes  amours: 
Et  quoy  ?  o  Souvenance  greve 
A  pen  que  le  cueur  ne  me  creve 
^uand  fen  park  ou  quand  fen  ecris: 
C^est  Belaud^  mon  petit  chat  gris: 
Belaud  qui  fust ^  paraventure 
Le  plus  be  I  oeuvre  que  nature 
Feit  one  en  matiere  de  chats: 
C^etoit  Belaudj  la  mort  au  rats 
Belaud  dont  la  beaute  fut  telle 
^jfelle  est  digne  d^estre  immortelle. 

*  *  *  * 

Mon-dieu^  quel  passetemps  c^estoit 
^uand  ce  Belaud  vire-voltoit 
Follastre  autour  d''une  pelote! 
^uel  plaisir^  quand  sa  teste  sotte 
Suyvant  sa  queue  en  tnille  tours, 
D'un  rouet  imitoit  le  cours  ! 
Ou  quand  assis  sur  le  derriere 
II  s* en  faisoit  une  jartiere^ 
Et  monstrant  Pestomac  velu 
De  panne  blanche  crespelu^ 
193 


THE  CAT 

Sembloit^  tant  sa  trogne  estoit  bonne^ 
^uelque  doSieur  de  la  Sorbonne! 
Ou  quand  alors  qu'on  Vanimoit^ 
A  coups  de  patte  tl  escrimoit^ 
Et  puis  appasoit  sa  cholere 
Tout  souda'in  qu^on  luy  faisoit  chere. 
*  *  *  * 

Belaud  estoit  mon  cher  mignon^ 
Belaud  estoit  mon  compagnon 
A  la  chambre^  au  li^y  a  la  table. 
Belaud  estoit  plus  accointable 
^e  nest  un  petit  chien  friand, 
Et  de  nui£f  rCalloit  point  criand 
Comme  ces  gros  marcoux  terribles. 
En  longs  miaudemens  horribles: 
Ausst  le  petit  mitouard 
N'entra  jamais  en  matouard: 
Et  en  Belaud  J  quelle  disgrace! 
De  Belaud  s^est  perdue  la  race. 

^e  pleust  a  Dieu,  petit  Belon, 
^ui  /eusse  r esprit  assez  bon, 
De  pouvoir  en  quelque  beau  style 
Blasonner  ta  grace  gentile, 
D'un  vers  aussi  mignard  que  toy: 
Belaud,  je  te  promets  ma  foy, 
^ue  tu  vivrois,  tant  que  sur  terre 
Les  chats  aux  rats  feront  la  guerre. 


194 


MALHERBE. 


MALHERBE. 

The  French  Renaissance  ended  in  the  Classic.  The  fate 
of  all  that  exuberance  was  to  find  order,  and  that  chaos  of 
generation  settled  down  to  the  obedience  of  unchanging 
laws.  This  transition,  which  fixed,  perhaps  for  ever,  the 
nature  of  the  French  tongue,  is  bound  up  with  the  name  of 
Malherbe. 

When  what  the  French  have  entitled  "  the  great  time," 
when  the  generation  of  Louis  XIV.  looked  back  to  find 
an  origin  for  its  majestic  security  in  letters,  it  was  in 
Malherbe  that  such  an  origin  was  discovered;  he  had 
tamed  the  wildness  of  the  Renaissance,  he  had  bent  its 
vigour  to  an  arrangement  and  a  frame;  by  him  first  were 
explicitly  declared  those  rules  within  which  all  his  suc- 
cessors were  content  to  be  narrowed.  The  devotion  to  his 
memory  is  nowhere  more  exalted  or  more  typically  pre- 
sented than  in  the  famous  cry — enfin  Malherbe  vint.  His 
name  carried  with  it  a  note  of  completion  and  of  an  end. 

When  the  romantic  revival  of  our  own  time  sought  for 
one  mind  on  which  to  lay  the  burden  of  its  anger,  one 
hard  master  or  pedant  who  could  be  made  responsible  for 
the  drying  up  of  the  wells,  Malherbe  again  was  found. 
He  became  the  butt  of  Hugo's  splendid  ridicule.  He  was 
the  god  of  plaster  that  could  not  hear  or  speak  or  feel,  but 

197 


MALHERBE. 

which  fools  had  worshipped ;  a  god  easy  to  break  to  pieces. 
His  austerity — for  them  without  fullness — his  meagre 
output,  his  solemn  reiterated  code  of  "  perfect  taste," 
moved  them  to  a  facile  but  intense  aggression.  He  it  was 
that  had  turned  to  fossil  stone  the  living  matter  of  the 
sixteenth  century :  He  that  had  stifled  and  killed  the  spirit 
they  attempted  to  recall. 

This  man  so  praised,  so  blamed,  for  such  a  quality,  was 
yet  exadtly,  year  for  year,  the  contemporary  of  Shakespeare, 
born  earlier  and  dying  later.  No  better  example  could  be 
discovered  of  the  contrast  between  the  French  and  English 
tempers. 

The  Romantics,  I  say,  beHeved  that  they  had  destroyed 
Malherbe  and  left  the  Classic  a  ruined,  antiquated  thing. 
They  were  in  error.  Vidor  Hugo  himself,  the  leader,  who 
most  believed  the  classic  to  have  become  isolated  and  past, 
was  yet,  in  spite  of  himself,  constrained  by  it.  Lamartine 
lived  in  it.  After  all  the  fantastic  vagaries  of  mystics  and 
realists  and  the  rest,  it  is  ruling  to-day  with  increasing 
power,  returning  as  indeed  the  permanent  religion,  the 
permanent  policy,  of  the  nation  are  also  returning  after  a 
century  of  astounding  adventures :  for  the  Classic  has  in 
it  something  necessary  to  the  character  of  the  French 
people. 

Consider  what  the  Classic  is  and  why  all  mighty  civilis- 
ations have  demanded  and  obtained  some  such  hard,  per- 
manent and,  as  it  were,  sacred  vehicle  for  the  expression 
of  their  maturity. 

198 


MALHERBE. 

Nations  that  have  a  long  continuous  memory  of  their 
own  past,  nations  especially  whose  gods  have  suffered 
transformation,  but  never  death,  develop  the  somewhat 
unelastic  wisdom  of  men  in  old  age.  They  mistrust  the 
taste  of  the  moment.  They  know  that  things  quite  fresh 
and  violent  seem  at  first  greater  than  they  are:  that  such 
enthusiasm  forms  no  lasting  legacy  for  posterity.  Their 
very  ancient  tradition  gives  them  a  thirst  for  whatever 
shall  certainly  remain.    The  rigid  Classic  satisfies  that  need. 

Again,  you  will  discover  that  those  whose  energy  is  too 
abundant  seek  for  themselves  by  an  instindl  the  necessary 
confines  without  which  such  energy  is  wasted — and  wasted 
the  more  from  its  excess.  They  canalise  for  their  own  se- 
curity a  torrent  which,  undisciplined,  would  serve  but  to 
destroy.  Such  an  instind  is  apparent  in  every  department 
of  French  life.  To  their  jurisprudence  the  French  have 
ever  attempted  to  attach  a  code,  to  their  politics  the  stone 
walls  of  a  Constitution,  or,  at  the  least,  of  a  fundamental 
theory.  Their  theology  from  Athanasius  through  St.  Ger- 
manus  to  the  modern  strid:  defence  against  all  "  liberals  " 
has  glorified  the  unchanging.  Every  outburst  of  the  in- 
terior fires  in  the  history  of  Gaul  has  been  followed  by  a 
rapid,  plastic  a6lion  which  reduced  to  human  use  what 
might  otherwise  have  crystallised  into  an  amorphous  lava. 
So  the  wild  freedom  of  the  twelfth  century  was  captured 
to  form  the  Monarchy,  the  University,  the  full  Gothic 
of  the  thirteenth:  so  the  Revolution  permitted  Napoleon 
and  produced,  not  the  visionary  unstable  grandeur  of  the 

199 


MALHERBE. 

Gironde,  but  the  schools  and  laws  and  roads  and  set  govern- 
ment we  see  to-day.  So  the  spring  storms  of  the  Renaissance 
settled,  I  say,  into  that  steady  summer  of  stable  form 
which  has  now  for  three  hundred  years  dominated  the 
literature  of  the  country. 

Caught  on  with  this  aspedl  of  energy  producing  the 
Classic  is  the  truth  that  energy  alone  can  dare  to  be  classical. 
Where  the  great  currents  of  the  soul  run  feebly  a  perpetual 
acceleration,  whether  by  novelty  or  by  extravagance,  will 
be  demanded;  where  they  run  full  and  heavy,  then,  under 
the  restraint  of  form,  they  will  but  run  more  proudly  and 
more  strong.  It  is  the  flickering  of  life  that  fears  hard  rules 
in  verse  and  may  not  feel  the  level  classics  of  our  Europe. 
Their  rigidity  is  not  that  of  marble;  they  are  not  dead. 
A  human  acquaintance  with  their  sobriety  soon  fills  us  as  we 
read.  If  we  lie  in  the  way  of  the  giants  who  conceived  them 
(let  me  say  Corneille  or  the  great  Dryden),  re-reading  and 
further  knowledge — especially  a  deeper  experience  of  com- 
mon life  about  us — reveal  to  us  the  steadfast  life  of  these 
images;  the  eyes  open,  the  lips  might  almost  move;  the 
statue  descends  and  lives. 

The  man  who  imposed  design  and  authority  and  unity 
upon  the  letters  of  his  country,  and  who  so  closed  the 
epoch  with  which  I  have  been  dealing,  was  singularly 
suited  to  his  task.  Observant,  something  of  a  stoic,  unin- 
spired; courageous,  witty,  a  soldier;  lucid,  critical  of  method 
only,  he  corresponded  to  the  movement  which,  all  around 
him,  was  ushering  in  the  Bourbons:    the  hardening  of 

200 


MALHERBE. 

Goujon's  and  de  I'Orme's  luxuriance  into  the  conventions 
of  the  great  colonnades  and  the  sombre  immensity  of  the 
new  palaces;  the  return  of  one  national  faith  to  a  people 
weary  of  so  many  random  quarrels;  the  mistrust  of  an  ill- 
ordered  squirearchy ;  the  firm  founding  of  a  central  govern- 
ment. 

He  was  Norman.  Right  of  that  north  whence  the  vigour, 
though  not  the  inspiration,  of  the  Renaissance  had  pro- 
ceeded, and  into  which  it  returned.  Caen  gave  him  birth, 
and  still  remembers  him.  Normans  still  edit  his  works — 
and  dedicate  these  books  to  the  town  which  also  bred 
Corneille.  Norman,  learned  with  that  restrained  but 
vigorous  learning  of  the  province,  he  was  also  of  the 
province  in  his  blood,  for  he  came  of  one  of  those  fixed 
families  whose  heads  held  great  estates  all  round  Falaise, 
and  whose  cadets  branched  off  into  chances  abroad  :  one  of 
the  Boughtons,  in  Kent,  is  still  '*Boughton  Malherbe."  ^ 

He  was  poor.  His  father,  who  held  one  of  those  magis- 
tracies which  the  smaller  nobility  bought  or  inherited,  had 
not  known  where  to  turn  in  the  turmoil  of  the  central 
century.  In  a  moment  of  distress  he  called  himself 
Huguenot  when  that  party  seemed  to  triumph,  and  Mal- 
herbe in  anger  against  the  apostasy  went  down  south,  a  boy 
of  nineteen,  and  fought  as  a  soldier — but  chiefly  duels; 
for  he  loved  that  sport.    He  lay  under  a  kind  of  protedlion 

^  Not  from  the  Conquest.  It  is  near  Charing,  originally  de  Braose 
land,  but  an  heiress  married  a  Malherbe  in  the  early  twelfth  century. 

20I 


MALHERBE. 

from  the  great  Catholic  houses,  though  still  poor,  till  in 
1 60 1 — he  was  a  man  of  forty-six — Henri  IV.  heard  of 
him.  In  all  these  years  he  had  worked  at  the  rule  of  poetry 
like  an  artisan,  thinking  of  nothing  else,  not  even  of  fame. 
Those  who  surrounded  him  took  it  for  granted  that  he 
was  a  master  critic — a  sort  of  judge  without  appeal,  but 
it  was  a  very  little  provincial  circle  surrounding  a  very  un- 
important house  in  Provence.  Thus,  careless  it  seems  of 
everything  except  that  ^'  form  of  language "  which  was 
with  him  a  passion,  like  the  academic  or  theological  pas- 
sions, he  was  astonished  on  coming  to  Paris  in  1605  to 
discover  how  suited  such  a  pre-occupation  was  to  such  a 
time,  and  how  rapidly  he  became  the  first  name  in  contemp- 
orary letters.  Of  men  who  poured  out  verse  the  age  was 
satiated;  of  men  who  could  seize  the  language  at  this  turn 
in  its  fortune,  fix  it  and  give  it  rules,  the  age  had  no 
knowledge  till  he  came :  the  age  fastened  upon  him,  and 
insisted  upon  making  him  a  master. 

A  full  twenty  years  from  1607  he  governed  the  trans- 
formation, not  of  thought,  for  that  he  little  changed,  but 
of  method  and  of  expression.  He  decided  what  should  be 
called  the  typical  metres,  the  alternative  of  feminine  and 
masculine  in  verse,  the  order  of  emphasis,  the  proportion 
of  inversion  tolerable,  the  propriety,  the  modernity,  the 
archaism  of  words.  It  is  a  fundlion  to  our  time  meaning- 
less and  futile:  to  such  a  period  as  that,  indispensable  and 
even  noble.  He  interpreted  and  published  the  national 
sentiment  upon  this  major  thing,  the  architedure  of  letters. 


MALHERBE. 

The  power  of  his  mind,  tortured  and  insufficient  in  adual 
produdlion,  was  supreme  in  putting  forth  clearly  and  finally 
that  criticism  which  ran  as  an  unspoken  and  obscure  cur- 
rent of  opinion  in  the  mind  of  his  age.  This  was  his  glory, 
and  it  was  true. 

His  dryness  was  extraordinary.  In  a  life  of  seventy-two 
years,  during  which  he  wrote  and  erased  incessantly,  he, 
the  poet,  wrote  just  so  much  verse  as  will  fill  in  large  type 
a  little  pocket  volume  of  250  pages;  to  be  accurate,  forty- 
three  lines  a  year.  Of  this  scraping  and  pumicestone  in  the 
mind  a  better  example  than  his  verse  is  to  be  found  in  his 
letters.  A  number  remain.  They  might  seem  to  be  written 
by  two  different  men !  Half  a  dozen  are  models  of  that 
language  he  adored — they  cost  him,  to  our  knowledge, 
many  days-r-the  rest  are  slipshod  notes  that  any  man  might 
write,  for  he  thought  they  would  not  survive,  and,  indeed, 
the  majority  of  his  editors  have  had  the  piety  to  suppress 
them. 

No  one  will  understand  Malherbe  who  only  hears  of 
how,  like  a  dusty  workman,  he  cut  and  polished,  and  so 
fixed  the  new  jewel  of  letters.  In  our  less  happy  age  the 
academic  spirit  is  necessarily  associated  with  a  lethargic 
stupidity.  In  his  it  was  not  so.  His  force,  by  which  this 
work  was  carried  through,  lay  in  a  character  of  penetration. 
His  face  expresses  it.  His  very  keen  and  ready  eyes,  his 
high  lifted  brow,  his  sharp  nose,  and  the  few  acflive  lines  of 
his  cheek  and  forehead,  the  poise  of  his  head,  the  disdain 
of  his  firm  mouth,  all  build  him  back  alive  for  us.    His  talk, 

203 


MALHERBE. 

which  stammered  in  its  volubility,  was  incessant  and  varied; 
his  temper  ready;  his  bodily  command  of  gesture  and  de- 
finition perfedl  in  old  age :  he  was  of  good  metal  all  those 
years. 

Of  his  intense  Toryism,  his  vivacity,  his  love  of  arms, 
his  tenacity  of  perception,  Racan  gives  us  in  his  biography 
an  admirable  pidlure.  Just  before  he  died  his  son  was  killed 
in  a  duel — he,  at  seventy-two,  desired  passionately  to  kill 
the  adversary.  "  Gambling,"  he  said,  "  my  pence  of  life 
against  the  gold  of  his  twenty-five  years."  He  had  wit, 
and  he  hated  well — hating  men  after  death : 

Here  richly  with  ridiculous  display- 
Killed  by  excess  was  Wormwood  laid  away, 
While  all  of  his  acquaintance  sneered  and  slanged, 
I  wept:   for  I  had  longed  to  see  him  hanged. 

His  zeal  for  his  tongue  was  real.  As  he  lay  upon  his 
death-bed  making  his  confession  after  so  vigorous  a  life,  he 
heard  his  nurse  say  something  to  herself  which  sounded 
ungrammatical  and,  turning  round  from  the  priest,  he  put 
her  right  in  a  manner  most  violent  and  sudden.  His  con- 
fessor, startled,  said :  *' The  time  is  not  relevant."  "All 
times  are  relevant!  "  he  answered,  sinking  back.  "I  will 
defend  with  my  last  breath  the  purity  and  grandeur  of  the 
French  tongue." 

To  such  a  man  the  meaning  of  the  solution  at  which  his 
people  had  arrived  after  a  century  of  civil  war  lay,  above 
all,  in  their  ancient  religion.  On  that  converged  those 
deeper  and  more  permanent  things  in  his  soul  of  which 

204 


MALHERBE. 

even  his  patriotism  and  his  literary  zeal  were  but  the  sur- 
face. In  the  expression  of  that  final  solution  his  verse, 
which  was  hardly  that  of  a  poet,  rises  high  into  poetry ; 
under  the  heat  and  pressure  of  his  faith,  single  lines  here 
and  there  have  crystallized  into  diamonds.  By  far  the  most 
vigorous  of  so  many  frigid  odes  is  the  battle  cry  addressed 
by  him  in  old  age  to  Louis  XIII.  setting  out  against  La 
Rochelle.  Hr  visited  that  siege,  but  had  the  misfortune  to 
die  a  bare  week  before  the  fall  of  the  city.  The  most  power- 
ful of  his  sonnets,  or  rather  the  only  powerful  one,  is  that 
in  which  he  calls  to  Our  Lord  for  vengeance  against  the 
men  who  killed  his  son.  Catholicism  in  its  every  effedt, 
political  and  personal,  as  it  were  literary  too,  possessed  the 
man,  so  that  in  ending  the  types  of  the  French  Renaissance 
with  him  you  see  how  the  terms  in  which  ultimately  the 
French  express  themselves  are  and  will  remain  religious. 
The  last  two  lines  of  his  most  famous  and  most  Catholic 
poem  have  about  them  just  that  sound  which  saves  them, 
in  spite  of  their  too  simple  words,  from  falling  into  the 
vulgar  commonplace  of  vague  and  creedless  men.  In  writ- 
ing them  down  one  seems  to  be  writing  down  the  fate  of 
the  great  century  now  tamed,  alas !  and  ordered,  as  must 
be  the  violence  of  over-human  things : — 

Vouloir  ce  que  Dieu  veut  est  la  seule  Science 
Qui  nous  met  en  repos. 


205 


EXTRACTS. 

{From  the  "  Ode  to  Louis  XIII.  setting  out  against  La  Rochelle"  and  the 
"  Sonnet  on  his  son's  death") 


EXTRACTS. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  Malherbe  in  his  most  vigorous 
years  deliberately  employed  the  strength  of  his  mind  to  the 
repression  of  emotion  in  his  verse,  and  used  it  only  to 
fashion,  guide,  control,  and  at  last  fix  permanently  the  rules 
of  the  language.  It  is  certainly  true  that  as  his  bodily 
vigour  declined,  a  certain  unexpeded  anger  and  violence 
enters  into  his  verse,  to  the  great  relief  of  us  moderns:  not 
to  that  of  his  contemporaries. 

Of  this  feature  in  him,  the  two  following  extrads  are 
sufficient  proof.  They  were  written,  the  first  at  the  close 
of  his  seventy-second,  the  other  at  the  entry  of  his  seventy- 
third  year.  In  each,  something  close  to  his  heart  was  at 
issue,  and  in  each  he  gives  some  vent — far  more  than  had 
been  his  wont — to  passion. 

The  first  is  a  cry  to  Louis  XIII.  to  have  done  with  the 
Huguenot.  It  was  written  to  the  camp  before  La  Rochelle. 
I  know  of  nothing  in  French  literature  which  more  ex- 
presses the  intense  current  of  national  feeling  against  the 
nobility  and  rich  townsmen  who  had  attempted  to  warp 
the  national  tradition  and  who  had  re-introduced  into 
French  life  the  element  which  France  works  perpetually  to 
throw  out  as  un-European,  ill-cultured  and  evil.    Indeed, 

209  p 


EXTRACTS. 

the  reading  of  it  is  of  more  value  to  the  comprehension  of 
the  national  attitude  than  any  set  history  you  may  read. 

The  second  is  in  its  way  a  thing  equally  religious  and 
equally  catholic.  This  call  for  vengeance  to  God  was  not 
only  an  expression  of  anger  called  forth  by  his  son's  death, 
it  was  also,  and  very  largely,  the  effedl  of  a  reaction  against 
the  ethics  of  Geneva:  an  attack  on  the  idolatry  at  once  of 
meekness  and  of  fatality  which  was  to  him  so  intolerable  a 
corruption  of  the  Christian  religion. 

There  is  some  doubt  as  to  whether  it  is  his  last  work. 
I  believe  it  to  be  so;  but  Blaise,  in  his  excellent  edition, 
prints  the  dull  and  unreadable  ode  to  Lagade  later,  and 
ascribes  it  to  the  same  year. 


210 


ODE  TO  LOUIS  XIII. 

Fals  choir  en  sacrifice  au  demon  de  la  France 
Les  fronts  trop  eleves  de  ces  ames  d'enfer; 
Et  riepargne  contre  eux,  pour  noire  delivrance^ 
Ni  le  feu  ni  le  fer. 

Asse%  de  leurs  complots  Vinfidele  malice 
A  nourri  le  desordre  et  la  sedition : 
^uitte  le  nom  de  fuste^  oufais  voir  ta  justice 
En  leur  punition. 

Le  centihne  decembre  a  les  plaines  ternies^ 
Et  le  centieme  avril  les  a  peintes  de  feurs^ 
Depuis  que  parmi  nous  leurs  brutales  manies 
Ne  causent  que  des  pleurs. 

Dans  toutes  les  fureurs  des  siecles  de  tes  peres, 
Les  monstres  les  plus  noirs  firent-ils  jamais  rien 
^ue  Pinhumanite  de  ces  cceurs  de  viper es 
Ne  renouvelle  au  tien  ? 

Par  qui  sont  aujourd^hui  tant  de  villes  desertes, 
Tant  de  grands  bdtiments  en  masures  changes^ 
Et  de  tant  de  chardons  les  campagnes  couvertes^ 
^ue  par  ces  enrages  ? 

***** 

211 


ODE  TO  LOUIS  XIII. 

Marche^  va  les  detruire^  eteins-en  la  sentence^ 
Et  suis  jusqu'a  leur  fin  ton  courroux  genereux^ 
Sans  jamais  ecouter  ni  pitie  ni  clemence 
^ui  te  park  pour  eux. 


Toutes  les  autres  marts  n^ont  merite  ni  marque; 
Celle-ci  porte  seule  un  eclat  radieux^ 
^ui  fait  revivre  Phomme^  et  le  met  de  la  barque 
A  la  table  des  dieux. 


212 


SONNET  ON  HIS  SON'S  DEATH. 


SONNET  ON  HIS  SON'S  DEATH. 

^ue  mon  fils  ait  perdu  sa  depouille  mortelle^ 
Ce  jils  qui  fut  si  brave^  et  que  faimai  si  fort ^ 
ye  ne  r impute  point  a  Pinjure  du  sorty 
Puis  que  finir  a  rhomme  est  chose  naturelle. 

Mais  que  de  deux  marauds  la  surprise  infid'ele 
Ait  termini  ses  jours  d''une  tragique  mort^ 
En  cela  ma  douleur  na  point  de  reconfort^ 
Et  tous  mes  sentiments  sont  d' accord  avec  elle. 

O  mon  DieUy  mon  Sauveur^  puisquc^  par  la  raison, 
Le  trouble  de  mon  ame  etant  sans  guerison^ 
he  vceu  de  la  vengeance  est  un  vceu  legitime^ 

Pais  que  de  ton  appui  je  sois  fortifie ; 

Ta  justice  Pen  prie^  et  les  auteurs  du  crime 

Sont  jils  de  ces  bourreaux  qui  Pont  crucijie. 


2K 


EXTRACTS  FROM 
THE  "CONSOLATION  OF  DU  PERRIER." 


THE  "CONSOLATION  OF  DU  PERKIER." 

These  stanzas,  which  are  among  the  best-known  as  they 
are,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  the  dullest,  in  French  literature, 
serve  well  to  close  this  book. 

One  verse  at  least  (the  fourth)  is  most  legitimately  famous, 
though  it  is  hackneyed  from  the  constant  repetition  of  fools. 
For  the  rest  a  certain  simplicity,  a  great  precision,  may  or 
may  not  atone  for  their  deliberate  coldness. 

What  is  certain  is  that,  poetry  or  not,  they  admirably 
express  the  spirit  of  his  pen  and  its  prodigious  effect.  They 
express  the  classical  end  of  the  French  Renaissance  with 
as  much  weight  and  hardness  as  the  great  blank  walls  of 
stone  that  were  beginning  to  show  in  the  rebuilding  of 
Paris.  It  is  for  this  quality  that  I  have  printed  them  here, 
using  them  as  the  definite  term  of  that  long,  glorious,  and 
uncertain  phase  in  European  letters. 


219 


THE  ''CONSOLATION  OF  DU  PERRIERr 

Ta  douleur^  du  Perrier^  sera  done  et  erne  lie? 

Et  les  tristes  discours 
^ue  te  met  en  Pesprit  Pamitie  paternelle 

L^augmenteront  toujour  si' 

Le  malheur  de  ta  fille  au  tombeau  descendue 

Par  un  coynrnun  trepas, 
Est-ce  quelque  dedale  ou  ta  raison  perdue 

Ne  se  retrouve  pas  ? 

Je  sais  de  quels  appas  son  enfance  etoit  pleine^ 

Et  n^ai  pas  entrepris^ 
Injurieux  ami,  de  soulager  ta  peine 

Avecque  son  mepris. 

Afais  elle  etoit  du  monde^  oik  les  plus  belles  choses 

Ont  le  pi  re  destin; 
Et  rose  elle  a  vecu  ce  que  vivent  les  roses 

Uespace  d'un  matin. 

Puis  quand  ainsi  seroit  que^  selon  ta  priere^ 

Elle  auroit  obtenu 
JD*avoir  en  cheveux  blancs  termine  sa  carriere, 

^u'en  fut-il  avenu? 

Penses-tu  que^  plus  vieille^  en  la  maison  celeste 

Elle  eut  eu  plus  d'accueil^ 
Ou  qu'elle  eut  moins  senti  la  poussiere  funeste 

Et  les  vers  du  cercueil? 

^  *  *  * 

221 


THE  "CONSOLATION  OF  DU  PERRIER." 

De  moif  deja  deux  fois  d^une  pareille  foudre 

"Je  me  suis  vu  perclus; 
Et  deux  fois  la  raison  ma  si  bien  fait  resoudre^ 

^u'il  ne  wzV«  souvient  plus. 

Non  qu^il  ne  me  soit  mal  que  la  tomhe  possede 

Ce  qui  me  fut  si  cher; 
Mais  en  un  accident  qui  n^a  point  de  remede^ 

II  nenfaut  point  chercher. 

La  Mort  a  des  rigueurs  a  nulle  autre  pareilles: 

On  a  beau  la  prier; 
La  cruelle  quelle  est  se  bouche  les  oreilles^ 

Et  nous  laisse  crier. 

Le  pauvre  en  sa  cabane^  oii  le  chaume  le  couvre^ 

Est  sujet  a  ses  lots; 
Et  la  garde  qui  veille  aux  barrier es  du  Louvre 

Wen  defend  point  nos  rois. 

De  murmurer  contre  elle  et  perdre  patience^ 

II  est  mal  a  propos; 
Vouloir  ce  que  Dieu  veut  est  la  seule  science 

^ui  nous  met  en  repos. 


222 


"  Vouloir  ce  que  Dleu  veut  est  la  seule  science 
^li  nous  met  en  repos.'^ 


NOTES. 


NOTES. 

CHARLES    OF   ORLEANS. 

The  Complaint. 

Line  5-  Prins,  An  inaccurate  pedantic  past  participle  o{ pre7idre. 

Line  14.  Faulse.  There  is  to  be  noted  here  and  elsewhere  through- 
out these  extrafts,  until  the  modern  spelling  at  the  close  of  the  period, 
the  redundant  "  1 "  in  many  words.  It  was  an  efFeft  of  pure  pedantry. 
The  latin  "1"  had  become  u  in  northern  French.  Faha  made,  na- 
turally, "Fausse."  The  partial  learning  of  the  later  middle  ages  re- 
introduced an  "1"  which  was  not  known  to  be  transformed,  but  was 
thought  omitted. 

Line  24.  Liesse.  One  of  the  commonest  words  of  this  epoch,  lost  to 
modern  French.    It  means  ]oy=laetitin. 

Line  25.  Note  the  gender  of  "Amour,"  feminine  even  in  the  sin- 
gular throughout  the  middle  ages  and  renaissance — right  up  to  the 
seventeenth  century. 


The  Two  Roundels  of  Spring. 
I 

Line  i.  Fourriers.  The  servants  who  go  before  to  find  lodging.  The 
term  survives  in  French  military  terminology.  The  Fourriers  are  the 
non-commissioned  officers  and  par|f  who  go  forward  and  mark  the 
Billeting  of  a  regiment. 

Line  9.  Piefa  =  il  y  a  piece;  "lately".  Cf.  tiaguere^^''''  il  fi'y  a 
guere.  .  .  . 

Line  11.    Prf»fZ /ii?w  =  "take  the  fields,"  begone. 

227 


NOTES. 

Line  19.  Note  ^"^  Chant, ^^  the  regular  form  of  the  subjunftive  = 
Cantet.  The  only  latin  vowel  preserved  after  the  tonic  syllable  is  a  = 
French  e  (mute).  Thus  contat-=.'-''  chante  "  which  form  has  in  modern 
French  usurped  the  subjunftive. 

Line  23.  Z,/c'rfV="  Liberata,"  i.e.,  things  given  out.  A  term  origin- 
ally applied  not  only  to  clothing,  but  to  the  general  allowance  of  the 
king's  household.     Hence  our  word  "livery." 


The  Farewell. 

Line  2.  Ckiere  lie.  "Happy  countenance."  Chiere  here  is  the 
substantive,  lie=laeta,  is  the  adjedlve.  Bonne  chere  means  "a  good  time  " 
where  chere  is  an  old  word  for  "head  "  (^Kapa). 

Line  5.  J5tf///;>=Bailliwick,  "For  Age  that  has  me  now  within  her 
bounds," 

Line  7,  Mye.  "  Crumb."  "  I  am  not  a  whit  (not  a  crumb)  with  her 
{Joie)  to-day." 

Line  15.    "Well  braced,"  literally  "well  girthed"  (as  a  horse  is). 


VILLON. 

The  Dead  Ladies. 

Stanza  i,  line  i.  Note  the  redundant  negative;  it  is  charafteristic 
of  mediaeval  French,  as  of  all  primitive  work,  that  the  general  sugges- 
tion of  doubt  is  sufficient  to  justify  a  redundant  negative. 

Line  2.  Flora,  etc.  It  is  worth  while  knowing  who  these  women 
were.  Flora  is  Juvenal's  Flora  (Sat.  II.  9),  a  legend  in  the  university.  Of 
Archipiada  I  know  nothing.  Thais  ^d.%  certainly  the  Egyptian  courtesan 
turned  anchoress  and  canonized,  famous  in  the  middle  ages  and  revived 
to-day  in  the  repulsive  masterpiece  of  M.  Anatole  France.  Elois  is,  of 
course,  Helo'ise,  and  Esbaillart  is  Abelard.  The  queen,  who  in  the 
legend  had  Buridan  (and  many  others)  drowned,  was  the  Dowager  of 
Burgundy  that  lived  in  the  Tour  de  Nesle,  where  the  Palais  Mazarin 

228 


NOTES. 

is  now,  and  had  half  the  university  for  a  lover:  in  sober  history  she 
founded  that  college  of  Burgundy  from  which  the  Ecole  dc  Medecine  is 
descended;  the  legend  about  her  is  first  heard  of  (save  in  this  poem)  in 
147 1,  from  the  pen  of  a  German  in  Leipzig.  Blanche  may  be  Blanche 
ofCastille,  but  more  likely  she  was  a  vision  of  Villon's  own,  for  what 
did  St.  Louis' mother  ever  sing?  j?^r//?  is  the  legendary  mother  of  Charle- 
magne in  the  Epics ;  Beatris  is  any  Beatrice  you  choose,  for  they  have  all 
died.  Allis  may  just  possibly  be  one  of  the  Troubadour  heroines,  more 
likely  she  is  here  introduced  for  rhyme  and  mttrt', Haremburgis  is  striftly 
historical:  she  was  the  Heiress  of  Maine  who  married  Foulque  of  Anjou 
in  1110  and  died  in  1 1  26:  an  ancestress,  therefore,  of  the  Plantagenets. 
Jehanne  is,  of  course,  Joan  of  Arc. 

Line  8.  D^ Antan  is  not  "Yester-year."  It  is  "Ante  annum,"  all 
time  past  before  this  year.  Rossetti's  "  Yester-year  "  moreover,  is  an 
absurd  and  afFefted  neologism;  "Antan"  is  an  excellent  and  living 
French  word. 

Stanza  IL,  line  2.  Note  the  pronunciation  of  "  Moyne  "  to  rhyme 
(more  or  less)  with  "  eine  " :  the  oi,  ai  and  ei  sounds  were  very  similar 
till  the  sixteenth  century  at  earliest.  They  are  interchangeable  in  many 
popular  provincialisms  and  in  some  words,  e.g.,  Fouet,  pronounced 
"Foit"  the  same  tendency  survives.  The  transition  began  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  seventeenth  century  as  we  learn  from  Vaugelas:  and  the 
influence  towards  the  modern  sound  came  from  the  Court. 

Stanza  III.,  line  2.   Seraine  =  ^^  Syren." 

Line  5.  "Jehanne,"  "Jehan,"  in  spite  of  the  classical  survival  in 
their  spelling,  were  monosyllables  from  the  earliest  times. 

Line  7.  The  "  e//es  "  here  would  not  scan  but  for  the  elided  "  e  "  in 
"souv'raine"  at  the  end  of  the  line.  In  some  editions  ";/f"  is  found 
and  souveraine  is  spelt  normally.  lis  and  els  for  a  feminine  plural  existed 
in  the  middle  ages. 

Envoi.  The  envoi  needs  careful  translation.  The  "  que  "  of  the  third 
line="sans  que  "  and  the  whole  means,  "Do  not  ask  this  week  or  this 
year  where  they  are,  without  letting  this  refrain  haunt  you."  "  Que  " 
might  possibly  mean  "  de  peur  que,"  did  not  the  whole  sense  of  the 
poem  forbid  such  an  interpretation. 

229 


NOTES. 

An  Excerpt  from  the  Grant  Testament. 

Stanza  75,  line  4.  A  charming  example  of  those  "flashes"  which 
reveal  Villon. 

Stanza  "j^i,  line  2.  Note  the  spelling  of  Grant  in  the  feminine  with- 
out an  e.  Adjeftives  of  the  third  declension  whose  feminine  was  not 
distinguishable  in  Latin  took  no  "  e  "  in  early  French.  A  survival  of 
this  is  found  in  grand'  rue,  grand'  messe,  etc. 

Line  5.  Grant  erre,  "quickly,"  and  the  whole  line  reads:  "Let  it 
(my  body)  be  delivered  to  it  (luy=la  terre)  quickly,"  the  "erre"  here 
is  from  the  popular  late  Latin  '•'■  iter  are  "=■'■'■  iter  facere.^^  It  survives  in 
the  nautical  idiom  "  reprendre  son  erre  "="  to  get  under  weigh  again." 

Line  7.  '•'■Erre"  here  comes,  on  the  contrary,  from  errare^  to  make  a 
mistake,  to  err. 

Stanza  77,  line  4.    Maillon.    Swaddling  clothes. 

Line  5.  Boullon,  scrape.  The  two  lines  are  obscure  but  seem  to 
read:  "  He  has  got  me  out  of  many  a  scrape  which  gave  him  no  joy  " 
[esioye  from  eijouir=^rejouir). 

Line  7  and  8.  These  are  obscure  but  apparently="  And  beseech 
him  on  my  knees  not  to  forsake  all  joy  on  that  account." 

Stanza  78,  line  2.  "Le  Romman  du  Pet  ati  Deable."  The  Pet  au 
Deable  was  a  great  stone  at  the  door  of  a  private  house  in  the  university. 
The  students  took  it  away  and  all  Paris  fought  over  the  matter.  The 
"Roman"  was  a  set  of  verses,  now  lost,  which  Villon  wrote  on  the  quarrel. 

Line  3.  Guy  Tabarie  who  grossa  (wrote  out),  these  verses  was  a  friend 
of  Villon's:  soon  hanged. 

Line  5.  Soubz.  The  "b  "  is  pedantic,  the  ou  indicates  of  itself  the 
loss  of  the  b.  The  "  z"  (and  the  "s  "  in  the  modern  soui)  are  due  to 
the  derivation  not  from  sub  but  subtus. 


The  Ballad  of  Our  Lady. 
Stanza  2,  line  3.    Egypciefine.    St.  Mary  of  Egypt. 
Line  4.    Theophilus.    This  was  that  clerk  who  sold  his  soul  to  the 
Devil  and  whom  Our  Lady  redeemed.     You  may  find  the  whole  story 

230 


NOTES. 

sculptured  on  the  Tympanum  of  the  exquisite  northern  door  of  Notre 

Dame  in  Paris. 

Line  8.    Fierge  Portant^='-''  Virgin  that  bore  a  son." 

Stanza  3,  line  4.   Zjz2;="  luthus."     "  S  "  becomes  "  z." 

The  Envoi,    Note  the  Acrostic  "  Villon  "  in  the  first  letters  of  the 

first  six  lines.    It  is  a  trick  he  played  more  than  once. 

The  Dead  Lords. 

Stanza  i,  line  I.  Calixte.  These  names  are  of  less  interest.  Calixte 
was  Pope  Calixtus  III.,  Alphonso  Borgia,  who  died  in  1458  —  in 
Villon's  twenty-sixth  year.  Alphonse  is  Alphonso  V.  of  Arragon,  who 
died  in  that  same  year.  The  Due  de  Bourbon  is  Charles  the  First  of 
Bourbon,  who  died  at  the  end  of  the  year  1456,  "gracieux"  because  his 
son  protefted  Villon.  Artus  (Arthur)  of  Brittany  is  that  same  Riche- 
mont  who  recaptured  Paris  from  Willoughby.  Charles  VIJ.  is  Charles 
VIL  The  Roy  Scotiste  is  James  IL,  who  died  in  1460:  the  Amethyst 
half  of  his  face  was  a  birthmark.  The  King  of  Cyprus  is  probably  John 
IIL,  who  died  in  that  same  fatal  year,  1458.  Pedants  will  have  it  that 
the  King  of  Spain  is  John  IL  of  Castille,  who  died  in  1454 — but  it  is  a 
better  joke  if  it  means  nobody  at  all.  Lancelot  is  Vladislas  of  Bohemia, 
who  died  in  14$/.  Cloquin  is  Bertrand  de  Guesclin  who  led  the  re- 
conquest.  The  Count  Dau/phin of  Auvergne  is  doubtful;  A/enfon  is  pre- 
sumably the  Alen9on  of  Joan  of  Arc's  campaign,  who  still  surviv^ed,  and 
is  called  "feu  "  half  in  ridicule,  because  in  1458  he  had  lost  his  title  and 
lands  for  treason. 

Stanza  2,  line  3.    Amatiste=amcihyst. 

Stanza  3,  line  7.    Tayon=  Ancestor.   '■'■Etallum"  Latin  ^'' Stallio" 

The  Dirge. 

Line  I.    C//=celui-ci.    Th.e  Lztin  "  ecce  ilium." 
Line  3.    Escuelle=how].    "With  neither  bowl  nor  platter." 
Line  4.    Note  again  the  constant  redundant  negative  of  the  populace 
in  this  scholar:  "Had  never,  no — not  a  sprig  of  parsley." 
Line  5.    Rez=T&$,  cropped. 

2.11 


NOTES. 

MAROT. 

Of  Courting  Long  Ago. 

Line  5.  On  se  prenoit,  one  attacked — "it  was  but  the  heart  one 
sought." 

Line  II.  FainSiz=s\i&m;  '■'■  changes"  is  simply  like  the  English 
"changes":  the  form  survives  in  the  idiom:   "  donner  le  change." 

Line  13.    Refonde=irtczst.. 

Noel. 
Verse  i,  line  3.    V Autre  hyer=  Atcrnm  heri,  "t'other  day," 
Line  10.    Noe.    The  tendency  to  drop  final   letters,  especially  the 
/,  is  very  marked  in  popular  patois,  and  this  is,  of  course,  a  song  based 
on  popular  language.    Most  French  peasants  north  of  the  Loire  would 
still  say  "Noe"  for  "Noel."    Noe/ is,  of  course,  Natalem  (diem). 
Verse  2,  Line  2.    Cas  de  si  hault  faiB=%o  great  a  matter. 


Two  Epigrams. 

Epigram  I,  line  2.  Vostre.  Marguerite  of  Navarre.  As  I  have 
remarked,  in  the  text,  she  had  sent  him  a  Dixaine  (some  say  he  wrote 
it  himself).  This  one  is  written  in  answer. — Ay.  Note,  till  the  verb 
grew  over  simple  in  the  classical  French  of  the  seventeenth  century 
there  was  no  more  need  for  the  pronoun  than  in  Latin.  Thus  Mon- 
taigne will  omit  the  pronoun,  but  Malherbe  never. 

Line  5.  Caj^fl»/=  thinking  {Cogitare=Cogtare=Coyde=  cuider,  the 
oi  became  ui  by  a  common  transition;  cf.  noftem,  odlem,  noit,  nuit, 
huit.)    The  word  is  now  archaic. 

Line  9.  Encor.  Without  the  final  e.  This  is  not  archaic  but  poetic 
licence.  £»r(?r^="hanc  horam,"  and  a  post  tonic  "  am  "  in  Latin  always 
means  a  final  mute  e  in  French. 

Epigram  2,  line  i.  M^/«/ (now  archaic)  is  a  word  of  Teutonic  origin, 
our  many. 

Line  6.    C£>ai^f=:Culpam,  of  course;  a  fault. 

232 


NOTES. 

Line  9.  Emport.  Note  the  old  subjunftive  without  the  final  c.  yide 
supra,  on  '■'^ Chant."  The  modern  usage  is  incorredl.  For  the  first  con- 
jugation making  its  subjunftive  in  em,  should  lose  the  final  syllable  in 
French:  a  post  tonic  em  always  disappears.  The  modern  habit  of  putting 
a  final  e  to  all  subjunftives  is  due  to  a  false  analogy  with  verbs  from  the 
third  conjugation.  These  made  their  subjunctive  in  am,  a  termination 
which  properly  becomes  the  mute  e  of  French. 


To  His  Lady  in  Sickness. 

Line  4.    Sejour={hcrQ)  "staying  at  home." 

Line  14,  15.    Friande  de  la  boucke,  glutton. 

Line  17.  Danger.  The  first  meaning  of  "  Danger  "  is  simply  "  to  be 
in  lordship  "  (Dominicarium).  The  modern  is  the  English  "Danger." 
This  is  between  the  two;  "held  to  your  hurt." 

Line  26.  Doint.  This  subjunflive  should  properly  be  don  l^donem, 
post  tonic  em  is  lost).  The  "  oint "  is  from  a  false  analogy  with  the  fourth 
conjugation,  as  though  the  Latin  had  been  doniam. 


The  Vineyard  Song. 

Verse  i,  line  2.  Clamours.  See  how  southern  this  is,  with  its 
Lanquedoc  forms,  "clamours"  for  "clam<?ar/." 

Line  5.  So  are  these  diminutions  all  made  up  at  random,  as  southern 
as  can  be,  and  note  the  tang  of  the  verse,  fit  for  a  snapping  of  the 
fingers  to  mark  the  rapid  time. 

Verse  3,  line  2.  Benistre.  The  older  form  of  benir  from  Benedicere; 
the  c  between  vowels  at  the  end  of  the  tonic  syllable  becomes  s:  the  / 
is  added  for  euphony,  to  help  one  to  pronounce  the  /. 

Line  3.  Silenus  for  Silene.  Because  the  name  was  new,  the  Latin  form 
is  kept.  The  genius  of  the  French,  unlike  that  of  modern  English,  is  to 
absorb  a  foreign  name  (as  we  did  once).  Thus  once  we  said  "  Anthony  " 
"  Tully  " :  but  Montaigne  wrote  "Cicero" — his  descendants  say 
"  Ciceron." 

233 


NOTES. 

Line  4.  jiussi  droiSl  qu^une  !igne^=. "  right  out  of  the  flask."  The  flask 
held  above  one  and  the  wine  poured  straight  into  the  mouth.  The 
happy  south  still  know  the  way. 

Line  5.    Eigne:  a  lump,  a  knock,  a  bruise. 

Line  6.    Ga/g-«^:=  cherry. 


RONSARD. 

Dialogue  with  the  Nine  Sisters. 

Stanza  i,  line  3.  Chef  grison^grdLj  head.  When  he  says  "trente 
ans,"  that  is  all  rubbish,  he  was  getting  on  for  forty-three:  it  was  written 
in  1567. 

Stanza  2,  line  l.    iV^(?r/^^r=pilot;  rare  but  hardly  archaic. 

Stanza  3,  line  3.  C^/>^W^/?/'=  meanwhile.  The  word  is  now  seldom 
used  in  prose,  save  in  the  sense  of  "notwithstanding,"  "nevertheless." 

Stanza  5,  line  i.    Z(?)'^r=  Condition  of  tenure. 

Line  2.  Or^;=Now  that.  Should  be  '■'■ore"  (horam).  The  parasitic 
"  s  "  probably  crept  in  by  false  analogy  with  the  adverbs  in  "s," 

Stanza  6,  line  i.  Ztf^r^  =  tombstone.  The  word  is  no  longer 
used. 

Line  4.  See  how,  even  in  his  lighter  or  prosaic  manner,  he  cannot 
avoid  great  lines. 

Stanza  8,  line  i.  /^W<7  =  Voila.  Then  follows  that  fine  ending  which 
I  have  put  on  the  title-page  of  this  book. 


"Mignonne  allons  voir  si  la  Rose." 
Line  I,  Mignonne  is,  of  course,  his  Cassandre:  her  personality  was 
always  known  through  his  own  verse.  She  was  fifteen  when  he  met  her 
and  her  brown  eyes:  it  was  in  1546  at  Blois,  her  birthplace,  whither 
he  had  gone  to  visit  the  Court,  during  his  scholar's  life  in  Paris.  He  met 
her  thus  young  when  he  himself  was  but  in  his  twenty-third  year,  and  all 
that  early,  violent,  not  over-tilled  beginning  of  his  poetry  was  illumined 
by  her  face.    But  as  to  who  she  was,  by  name  I  mean,  remained  long  a 

234 


NOTES. 

matter  of  doubt.  Binet  would  have  it  that  her  true  name  was  Cassandre, 
and  that  its  singularity  inspired  Ronsard.  Brantome  called  it  "a  false 
name  to  cover  a  true."  Ronsard  himself  has  written,  "  false  or  true,  time 
conquering  all  things  cannot  efface  it  from  the  marble."  There  need 
have  been  no  doubt.  D'Aubigne's  testimony  is  sufficient.  She  was  a 
Mile,  de  Pie,  and  such  was  the  vagary  of  Ronsard's  life,  that  it'was  her 
niece,  Diane  Salviati  de  Taley  whom  in  later  life  he  espoused  and 
nearly  wed. 

Line  3.  Note  Pourpre,  and  in  line  5  Pourpree  so  in  line  9  Beautez, 
and  in  the  last  line  Beaute:  so  little  did  he  fear  repetition  and  so  heartily 
could  his  power  carry  it. 

Line  4.  A  point:  the  language  was  still  in  flux.  The  phrase  would 
require  a  negative  »'  in  modern  French. 

Line  10,  II.  Marastre  .  .  .  puisqu^une  .  .  There  is  here  an  elliptical 
construdion  never  found  in  later  French.  Harsh  stepmother  nature 
(whom  I  call  harsh)  since  ..."  etc. 


Sonnets  for  Helene. 

Sonnet  xlii.,  line  i.    Or/Vajf=  "  otiosa,"  langorous. 

Line  5.  fwwaj,  in  the  sixteenth  centnry  meant  something  fuller  than, 
and  somewhat  different  from  the  word  "  ennui  "  to-day.  It  was  a 
weariness  which  had  in  it  some  permanent  chagrin. 

Line  8.  Pipe,  "  cajoles  ":  a  word  which  (now  that  it  is  unusual)  mars 
the  effedl  of  its  meaning  by  its  insignificant  sound. 

Lines  8  and  9.  Note  ioye,  vraye,  a  feminine  "  e  "  following  another 
vowel  is,  since  Malherbe,  forbidden  in  the  interior  of  a  verse,  unless 
elided. 

Line  II.    To/i  mort,  "your  ghost." 

Sonnet  xliii.,  line  6.    Z)^^/^=deja. 

Line  7.  De  mon  nom.  I  have  printed  the  line  thus  because  Ronsard 
himself  wished  it  so,  and  so  correfted  it  with  his  own  hand.  But  the 
original  form  is  far  finer  '•'•Au  bruit  de  Ronsard." 


235 


NOTES. 


DU  BELLAY. 

The  Sonnet  "  Heureux  qui  comme  Ulysse." 
Line  3.    Usage.    A  most  powerful  word  in  this  slightly  archaic  sense: 
the  experience  of  long  travel:  familiar  knowledge  of  things  seen. 

Line  12.  Loire.  This  word  has  puzzled  more  than  one  editor.  There 
are  two  rivers:  the  great  river  Loire,  which  is  feminine,  and  the  little 
Loir,  which  is  masculine.  Here  Du  Bellay  spells  the  name  of  the  great 
river,  but  puts  it  in  the  masculine  gender.  It  has  been  imagined  that 
he  was  talking  of  the  smaller  river.  But  he  was  not.  The  Loire  alone 
has  any  connexion  with  Lire  or  with  his  life,  and  as  for  the  gender, 
strained  as  the  interpretation  may  seem,  I  believe  that  Du  Bellay 
deliberately  used  it  in  the  parallel  with  the  Tiber  and  the  idea  of  the 
"  Fleuve  Paternel,"  to  which  he  alludes  so  often  elsewhere. 

Line  13.  Lyre.  The  modern  Lire,  his  birthplace,  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Loire,  just  opposite  Ancenis.  As  you  go  along  the  Poitiers  road 
to  the  bridge  it  stands  up  on  your  right,  just  before  the  river. 

The  Dog. 

Line  l.    Mofte=a  turf. 

Line  40.  Damoiselet.  Still  used  more  or  less  in  its  old  sense  of  a  young 
man  armed:  not  mereley  a  young  page  or  a  cadet  of  the  gentry,  =  "like 
a  little  sentry." 

Line  43.    ^7/z7>= (of  course)  "  envie." 

The  Cat. 

Line  22.    -K^//(f'/=spinning-wheel. 

Line  26.    Pam!e=.ih.Q  Italian  Panno — cloth. 

Line  27.    Troigfie=the  mouth  and  face  of  an  animal,  the  muzzle. 

Line  32.  C/'^r^=  (originally)  "head"  and  one  of  the  few  old  French 
words  derived  from  Greek,  but  the  first  signification  has  long  been  lost. 
Here  the  phrase  is  equivalent  to  "  faire  bonne  chere  "  which  has  for 
centuries  been  used  proverbially  for  what  we  call  "a  good  time."  V. 
supra  in  "  The  Farewell  "  of  Charles  of  Orleans. 

236 


NOTES. 

MALHERBE. 

Extracts  from  the  "Ode  to  Louis  XIII." 
Stanza  3,  line  i.    Centieme.     He  dates  the  Huguenot  trouble  from  a 
century.    It  may  be  said  to  have  originated  in  the  placards  threatening 
the  defilement  of  the  Sacrament,  placards  which  appeared  in  the  streets 
of  Paris  in  1525. 

Stanza  2,  line  3.  Le  nom  de  Juste.  Louis  XIII.  had  no  particular 
afFeftation  of  that  title:  it  is  rather  a  reminiscence  of  his  distant  collatoral 
and  namesake  who  closed  the  fifteenth  century. 

Last  stanza,  line  i.  Toutes  les  autres  marts.  He  has  just  been  speak- 
ing of  death  in  battle  against  the  fadions. 


Sonnet  on  His  Son's  Death. 

Line  i.  Moti  fls.  The  only  survivor  of  his  many  children,  a  young 
man,  just  called  to  the  bar  at  Aix  and  passionately  loved  by  his  father, 
he  bore  the  curious  name  of  Marc -Anthony.  A  M.  de  Piles  killed  him 
in  a  duel,  having  for  second  his  brother-in-law.  The  whole  was  an 
honourable  bit  of  business,  and  the  death  such  as  men  of  honour  must 
be  prepared  to  risk:  but  Malberbe  would  see  no  reason  and  defamed 
the  adversary. 

Line  9.  La  Raison.  The  idea  runs  all  through  Malherbe's  work.  It 
is  his  distinguishing  note,  and  is  the  spirit  which  differentiates  him  so 
powerfully  from  the  sixteenth  century,  that  this  stoical  balance  or 
regulator  which  he  calls  *'La  Raison,"  and  which  governed  France  for 
two  hundred  years,  is  his  rule  and  text  for  verse  and  prose  as  well  as  for 
practical  life.  Even  the  grandeur  to  which  it  gave  rise  seemed  to  him 
accidental.  He  demanded  "  la  raison  "  only,  and  felt  the  necessity  of  it 
in  art  as  acutely  as  though  its  absence  were  something  immoral. 


Extracts  from  the  "  Consolation  of  du  Perrier." 
Stanza  i,  line  i.    Duperrier.    A  critic  of  sorts  and  a  gentleman,  liv- 
ing in  Provence  and  perhaps  of  Provencal  ancestry.    The  verses  were 

237 


NOTES. 

written  while  Malhcrbe's  fame  was  still  local,  two  years  before  the  king's 
visit  had  lifted  him  to  Paris. 

Stanza  2,  line  2.  Ta  fille.  The  child  Marguerite.  Her  name  does 
not  appear  in  the  poem  nor  in  any  letter;  we  have  it  from  Racan. 

Stanza  10,  line  3.  Et  la  garde,  etc.  These  two  lines  are  quoted, 
sometimes,  not  often,  by  admirers  who  would  prove  that  Malherbe  was 
not  incapable  of  colour  or  of  warmth. 


238 


CHISWICK   PRESS  :    CHARLES  WHITTINGHAM   AND  CO. 
TOOKS  COURT,   CHANXERY  LANK,   LONDON. 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


CDDmi77Dt. 


